Every once in a while you read an article that you know is truly a ‘landmark’. An article that presents new, original and impactful data to better the care of patients, and simultaneously serves to validate a practice model applied by many but with limited scientific data.

Johnson and Ackerman1 present their findings on athletes with congenital long QT syndrome (LQTS) and the outcomes of continued sports participation contrary to the 2005 guidelines of the 36th Bethesda Conference and the European Society of Cardiology.2 ,3 (link to article by Johnson) In over 650 athlete-years of follow-up after returning to sport with LQTS, there were no deaths and only one athlete with sport-related cardiac events involving appropriate VF-terminating implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) shocks in a very-high-risk child (QTc>550 ms and history of resuscitated cardiac arrest).

Cardiovascular screening: there is no debate!

Everybody supports screening—AHA, ACC, ESC, IOC, FIFA, AMSSM, AAP, AAFP, NCAA… you name it. Major medical and sport governing organisations universally endorse cardiovascular screening …