MiscellaneousComparison of Frequency of Significant Electrocardiographic Abnormalities in Endurance Versus Nonendurance Athletes
Section snippets
Methods
In 2011, the investigators contacted a variety of Australian sporting organizations currently undertaking, or wishing to undertake, ECG screening and invited athletes to participate in this study. From June 2011 to June 2013, a total of 1,381 elite athletes underwent cardiovascular screening inclusive of a 12-lead electrocardiography at rest, clinical history and examination, and collection of morphometric and demographic data. Athletes aged from 16 to 35 years were included. In 23 athletes who
Results
All athletes were nationally or internationally competitive, with 62% having represented Australia at the Olympic Games, world championships, or other international events and 36% competing in Australian Rules football at the highest level. They competed in a variety of sporting disciplines, 251 (20%) classified as endurance and 1,010 (80%) as nonendurance (Figure 1). Of the 1,261 athletes, 254 (21.1%) were women. A total of 1,078 (85.5%) were Caucasian, 149 (11.8%) of indigenous Australian,
Discussion
In this, the first study to directly compare large numbers of truly elite endurance athletes and NEAs, we found that training-related ECG changes were significantly more common in EAs than NEAs, consistent with the hypothesis that more profound physiological cardiac adaptation (athlete's heart) in response to endurance exercise may be reflected on the electrocardiogram. Group 1 ECG changes were present in the vast majority of sportsmen and sportswomen and were both more prevalent and more
Acknowledgment
The authors thank the following people for their interest and invaluable organizational assistance during this study: Dr Anik Shawdon, MBBS, Dr Larissa Trease, MBBS, Dr Geoffrey Verrall, MBBS, and Dr David T. Martin, PhD.
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2018, JACC: Clinical ElectrophysiologyCitation Excerpt :Diffuse TWI is a well-established marker of disease severity in ARVC (24–26). Furthermore, TWI beyond lead V3 is uncommon in the general population (27) and in athletes (1–3) but occurs in a significant subset of ARVC patients (25,28,29). Thus, it is to be expected that the specificity for underlying myocardial pathology will increase with more extensive TWI.
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