Echocardiography in Athletes in Primary Prevention of Sudden Death

Abstract

Echocardiography is a noninvasive imaging technique useful to provide clinical data regarding physiological adaptations of athlete's heart. Echocardiographic characteristics may be helpful for the clinicians to identify structural cardiac disease, responsible of sudden death during sport activities. The application of echocardiography in preparticipation screening might be essential: it shows high sensitivity and specificity for identification of structural cardiac disease and it is the first-line imagining technique for primary prevention of SCD in athletes. Moreover, new echocardiographic techniques distinguish extreme sport cardiac remodeling from beginning state of cardiomyopathy, as hypertrophic or dilated cardiomyopathy and arrhythmogenic right ventricle dysplasia. The aim of this paper is to review the scientific literature and the clinical knowledge about athlete's heart and main structural heart disease and to describe the rule of echocardiography in primary prevention of SCD in athletes.

Keywords: Athlete's heart; cardiomyopathy; echocardiography; myocardial work; prevention; speckle tracking strain; sudden cardiac death.