State-of-the-Art Paper
Athlete's Heart: The Potential for Multimodality Imaging to Address the Critical Remaining Questions

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Moderate exercise is a powerful therapy in the treatment and prevention of cardiac disease, but intense habitual exercise leads to cardiac adaptations for which the prognostic benefits are less clear. The athlete's heart syndrome refers to the morphological and electrical remodeling which occurs to varying extents dependent upon the sporting discipline. Its accurate differentiation from pathological entities is critical. This review describes the role multi-modality imaging serves in determining the limitations and consequences of intense exercise. Tissue characterization and imaging studies during exercise are emphasized as important future directions of inquiry with the potential to address remaining controversies.

Key Words

athlete's heart
cardiac structure
cardiac function
myocardial injury

Abbreviations and Acronyms

CMR
cardiac magnetic resonance
HCM
hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
LA
left atrial
LV
left ventricle
LVEF
left ventricular ejection fraction
LVH
left ventricular hypertrophy
PET
position emission tomography
RV
right ventricle
SPECT
single-photon emission computed tomography
TDI
tissue Doppler imaging

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Dr. La Gerche is supported by a National Heart Foundation/National Health and Medical Research Council Post Graduate Research Scholarship.