Clinical InvestigationRight Ventricular Function–Influences of Changes in LoadingThe Right Ventricle of the Endurance Athlete: The Relationship between Morphology and Deformation
Section snippets
Methods
One hundred two endurance athletes (86 men, 16 women) with a broad age range (mean, 36 ± 11 years; range, 21–71 years) volunteered to participate in the study. We recruited elite, internationally competitive athletes via direct contact with athletes, coaches, and race organizers. All athletes were competing at the highest level within their chosen sports, including internationally renowned competitions. Height and body mass were measured using standard equipment; the mean height was 178 ± 8 cm
RV Morphology and Function
Intraobserver variability of RV indices is expressed using the coefficient of variation, with values for ε, SRS′, SRE′, and SRA′ of 7%, 13%, 17%, and 15% respectively. RVOT, RVI, RVL, and RVDarea all provided excellent intraobserver reproducibility, with values of 2%, 1%, 4%, and 4%, respectively.
All RV structural data are presented in Table 1. All 102 athletes had adequate image quality to allow a complete set of RV measurements. The values for RVI ranged from 30 to 55 mm, with 57% of the
Discussion
This study provides absolute values for RV morphologic and functional parameters and is unique in establishing their relationships with body size and RV morphology in a relatively large population of endurance athletes. The structural values confirm some of the findings from smaller studies using magnetic resonance imaging, in that all RV dimensions in athletes are significantly larger than those of the general population and consistently fall into an “abnormal” category when compared with
Acknowledgment
We are grateful to our subjects and all those at Cardiac Risk in the Young who helped facilitate this work.
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