PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Teresina Vessella
AU  - Alessandro Zorzi
AU  - Laura Merlo
AU  - Cinzia Pegoraro
AU  - Flaviano Giorgiano
AU  - Michele Trevisanato
AU  - Mirella Viel
AU  - Pietro Formentini
AU  - Domenico Corrado
AU  - Patrizio Sarto
TI  - The Italian preparticipation evaluation programme: diagnostic yield, rate of disqualification and cost analysis
AID  - 10.1136/bjsports-2018-100293
DP  - 2020 Feb 01
TA  - British Journal of Sports Medicine
PG  - 231--237
VI  - 54
IP  - 4
4099  - http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/54/4/231.short
4100  - http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/54/4/231.full
SO  - Br J Sports Med2020 Feb 01; 54
AB  - Introduction Italian law mandates that every competitive athlete must undergo annual preparticipation evaluation (PPE) to identify cardiovascular (CV) diseases that pose a risk of sudden death (SD) during sport and other conditions that may threaten the athlete’s health. We investigated the diagnostic yield, rate of disqualification and costs of our PPE.Methods We included 5910 consecutive apparently healthy athletes (61% males, mean age 15±4 years) who underwent annual PPE performed by a sports medicine specialist. The PPE included history, physical examination, weight, height and blood pressure measurement, test of visual acuity, spirometry, urine chemistry, resting 12-lead ECG and exercise testing with ECG monitoring. In cases of abnormal findings, we carried out second-line investigations.Results During a 12-month study period, 5.326 (90.2%) athletes were cleared for competition after a normal first-line evaluation and 584 (9.8%) underwent one or more further examinations. Of those, 88 (1.5%) were diagnosed to have a CV disease (including 18 (0.3%) at-risk of SD) and 31 (0.5%) had a non-CV diagnosis. A total of 32 (0.5%) athletes were temporarily (n=15) or permanently (n=17) disqualified from competitive sports. The average cost per athlete was €79, which consisted of €64 (80%) for first-line evaluations and €15 (20%) for additional investigations.Conclusion PPE according to the Italian model identified a range of diseases in 2.0% of apparently healthy athletes at an average cost of €79.