Abstract 15889: The Role of Physical Deconditioning in Distinguishing Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy From Athlete's Heart

Circulation ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (Suppl_3) ◽  
Author(s):  
munim A khan ◽  
Ethan J Rowin ◽  
Aadhavi Sridharan ◽  
Martin S Maron

Background: Vigorous systematic physical training can result in increased left ventricular wall thickness (LVWT) (i.e., “athlete’s heart”) which can be challenging to differentiate diagnostically from mild non-obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The efficacy of a deconditioning strategy to observe changes in LVWT using cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) that would support a diagnosis of athlete’s heart vs. HCM is not well established. Methods: We identified 9 highly trained patients involved in various organized sports who were referred to the Tufts Medical Center HCM center with a maximal LVWT in a diagnostic “gray area” of 13-15 mm. Maximal LVWT and other clinical and imaging variables were compared at baseline and following > 3 months of deconditioning from athletic training. A clinically relevant change in maximal LVWT at the end of athletic deconditioning was defined as a decrease of ≥2 mm, consistent with “athlete’s heart”. Imaging studies were interpreted blinded to study time period. Results: Among the 9 patients (23.1 ± 12.3 years old; 100% male), 4 demonstrated a ≥ 2 mm decrease in maximal LVWT (range: 2 mm to 3 mm) to ≤ 12 mm in 3 patients and 13 mm in one patient, with an average decrease of 2.3 mm. Among these 4 patients, LV and LA size also decreased (217.3 ± 31.5 ml to 208.9 ± 16.8 ml; and 55.4 ± 10.0 mm to 51.7 ± 9.1 mm, respectively), and there was no late gadolinium enhancement, pathogenic sarcomere mutation, or family history of HCM. Parameters of diastolic function were normal prior to deconditioning. After deconditioning evaluation and significant change in LVWT, these 4 patients were judged to not have a clinical diagnosis of HCM. The remaining 5 patients had a non-significant change in maximal LVWT after deconditioning of 0.2 mm, with maximal LVWT remaining ≥ 13 mm, and no change in LV or LA cavity size (p>0.2 for each). After deconditioning, these 5 patients were judged to have a clinical diagnosis of HCM. In the 9 patients that underwent a period of deconditioning, there was an average heart rate increase of 6.33. Conclusion: In athletes with maximal LVWT within the “gray zone” (13-15 mm) of overlap with HCM, athletic deconditioning using CMR to detect changes in maximal LVWT can aid in the differential diagnosis and inform management decisions.

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (10) ◽  
pp. 667-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Zorzi ◽  
Chiara Calore ◽  
Riccardo Vio ◽  
Antonio Pelliccia ◽  
Domenico Corrado

BackgroundInterpretation of the athlete’s ECG is based on differentiation between benign ECG changes and potentially pathological abnormalities. The aim of the study was to compare the 2010 European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and the 2017 International criteria for differential diagnosis between hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) and athlete’s heart.MethodsThe study populations included 200 patients with HCM and 563 athletes grouped as follows: ‘group 1’, including normal ECG and isolated increase of QRS voltages, which are considered non-pathologic according to ESC and International criteria; ‘group 2’, including left atrial enlargement or left axis deviation in isolation and Q-waves with an amplitude ≥4 mm but <25% of the ensuing R-wave and a duration <0.04 s which are considered pathologic according to the ESC but not according to the International criteria; and ‘group 3’, including abnormalities which are considered pathologic according to ESC and International criteria.ResultsOverall, the 2010 ESC criteria showed a sensitivity of 95.5% and a specificity of 86.9%. Considering group 2 ECG changes as normal according to the International criteria led to a statistically significant (p<0.001) increase of specificity to 95.9%, associated with a non-significant (p=0.47) reduction of sensitivity to 93%. Among patients with HCM, there was a significant increase of maximal left ventricular wall thickness from group 1 to 3 (p=0.02).ConclusionsThe use of 2017 International criteria is associated with a substantial increase in specificity and a marginal decrease in sensitivity for differential diagnosis between HCM and athlete’s heart.


2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (S1) ◽  
pp. S80-S88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher C. Erickson

AbstractChronic physical training has been shown to produce multiple changes in the heart, resulting in the athlete’s heart phenotype. Some of the changes can make it difficult to discern athlete’s heart from true cardiac disease, most notably hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Other diseases such as dilated cardiomyopathy and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy may be difficult to rule in or out. In this article, the physiological cardiac changes of chronic athletic training are reviewed. A methodological approach using electrocardiography and echocardiography to differentiate between athlete’s heart and cardiac disease is proposed.


Circulation ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 130 (suppl_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaspar Broch ◽  
Stefano deMarchi ◽  
Richard Massey ◽  
Svend Aakhus ◽  
Lars Gullestad ◽  
...  

Introduction: Elite endurance athletes often develop left ventricular dilatation comparable to that observed in aortic regurgitation (AR). Hypothesis: We hypothesized that the LV remodeling observed in athlete’s heart differs from that seen in AR, and that the difference may be attributed to different fiber stress distribution. Methods: Thirty asymptomatic patients with moderate to severe AR, 15 age matched elite endurance athletes (Athl) and 17 age matched healthy controls (C) where analyzed with 3D speckle tracking echocardiography. We calculated the ratio between peak systolic circumferential (CS) - and peak systolic longitudinal strain (LS) and end-systolic (ES) circumferential (ESSc) and meridional (ESSm) fiber stress. Results: LV ejection fraction in C, Athl and AR patients was (61 ± 2, 61 ± 3 and 62 ± 3%, respectively, p=NS). LV end-diastolic volume was 78 ± 11, 112 ± 13 and 117 ± 20 ml/m 2 in C, Athl and AR, respectively, (C vs AR and Athl, p<0.01, AR vs Athl, p=NS). A non-uniform contraction pattern with a rightward shift of the LS strain curve was observed in AR (Figure 1). The CS/LS ratio was 0.91 ± 0.11, 0.91 ± 0.16 and 1.12 ± 0.24 in C, Athl and AR, respectively, (AR vs C and Athl, p<0.01, C vs Athl, p=NS). Consistently, the ESSc/ESSm ratio was similar in C and Athl (1.75 ± 0.08 and 1.74 ± 0.07, respectively, p=NS) and lower in AR patients (1.67 ± 0.07, AR vs C and Athl, p<0.01), indicating a relative increase in meridional fiber stress in the AR group (Figure 2). Conclusions: We have demonstrated that LV remodeling in AR patients differs from athlete’s heart with similar LV volumes, and may be attributed to a shift in the circumferential-meridional fiber stress ratio in AR patients.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (Supplement_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
T Dresselaers ◽  
P Rafouli-Stergiou ◽  
R De Bosscher ◽  
S Tilborghs ◽  
C Dausin ◽  
...  

Abstract Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Ph.D fellowship of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO). The Master@Heart trial is funded by the FWO. Introduction Differentiating intensive training induced hypertrophy from hyperthropic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is important to identify those young athletes at risk of sudden cardiac death. Swoboda and colleagues demonstrated that T1 and ECV mapping can aid such a differentiation between athletic and pathological hypertrophy, particularly in subjects with indeterminate wall thickness (1). Recently texture analysis (TA) methods of CMR data have demonstrated improved diagnostic accuracy over conventional qualitative analysis in various heart diseases. Only few studies have applied TA to T1 and ECV mapping data (2-4). Here we aimed to demonstrate that a TA approach provides superior capacity to distinguish HCM from athlete’s heart over average native T1 and ECV values. Purpose It was our hypothesis that a texture analysis of T1 and ECV mapping images would identify features that could discriminate between a HCM and athlete’s heart with a higher classification accuracy (CA) than average T1 and ECV values. Methods This study included data from 97 subjects diagnosed with HCM (acc. to guidelines; 5) and 28 athletes that took part in the Master@Heart trial (an ongoing study assessing the beneficial effects of long-term endurance exercise for the prevention of coronary artery disease, 6).  Long and short axis T1 mapping data was acquired on a 1.5T Philips Ingenia system using MOLLI (seconds scheme). After offline motion correction and T1 and ECV map calculation (7), the left ventricular myocardium was manually delineated (3D Slicer; 8). Texture analysis of the masked images resulted in 194 features (Pyradiomics, standard settings; 9). The dataset was then split (75/25%) for training and testing purposes keeping images from the same subject within the same set. A fast correlation based filter rank was applied to the training data to derive relevant features. A further reduction to only two features was based on the CA of a support vector machine (SVM) learning method (linear kernel; cost 0.9 regression loss epsilon 0.1; leave-one-out). Finally, ROC analysis on the test data was used to determine the diagnostic accuracy for the following predictors: (1) median T1 and ECV (2) two most relevant features (training) (3) combination of (1) and (2) (ROC AUC statistics (10)). Results The two most relevant features were the histogram feature ECV energy and the gray level size zone matrix (GLSZM) feature native T1 zone entropy, a measure of heterogeneity in the texture pattern. A model to distinguish HCM from athletes based on these features outperformed the model using only median T1 and ECV values with both higher sensitivity and specificity (table 1) and a significantly  higher AUC in the ROC analysis (p &lt; 0.05, figure 1). Combining these two features with median values did not improve the CA further.  Conclusion Texture analysis of motion-corrected T1 and ECV mapping images out-performs classical analysis based on average values in distinguishing HCM from athlete"s heart.


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