scholarly journals Screening young athletes for diseases at risk of sudden cardiac death: role of stress testing for ventricular arrhythmias

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Zorzi ◽  
Teresina Vessella ◽  
Manuel De Lazzari ◽  
Alberto Cipriani ◽  
Vittoria Menegon ◽  
...  

Aims The athletic preparticipation evaluation (PPE) protocol proposed by the European Society of Cardiology includes history, physical examination and resting electrocardiogram (ECG). The aim of this study was to assess the results of adding constant-load ECG stress testing (EST) to the protocol for the evaluation of ventricular arrhythmias (VA) inducibility. Methods We evaluated a consecutive cohort of young athletes with history, physical examination, resting ECG and EST. Athletes with VA induced by EST underwent 24-hour 12-lead Holter monitoring and echocardiography. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) was reserved for those with frequent, repetitive or exercise-worsened VA, and for athletes with echocardiographic abnormalities. Results Of 10,985 athletes (median age 15 years, 66% males), 451 (4.1%) had an abnormal history, physical examination or resting ECG and 31 (0.28%) were diagnosed with a cardiac disease and were at risk of sudden cardiac death. Among the remaining 10,534 athletes, VA at EST occurred in 524 (5.0%) and a previously missed at-risk condition was identified in 23 (0.22%); the most common ( N = 10) was an echocardiographically silent non-ischaemic left-ventricular fibrosis evidenced by CMR. The addition of EST increased the diagnostic yield of PPE by 75% (from 0.28% to 0.49%) and decreased the positive predictive value by 20% (from 6.9% to 5.5%). During a 32 ± 21 months follow-up, no cardiac arrests occurred among either eligible athletes or non-eligible athletes with cardiovascular disease. Conclusions The addition of exercise testing for the evaluation of VA inducibility to history, physical examination and ECG resulted in an increase of the diagnostic yield of PPE at the expense of an increase in false-positive findings.

Author(s):  

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a disease characterised as left ventricular (LV) or biventricular dilatation with impaired systolic function. Regardless of underlying cause patients with DCM have a propensity to ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD) implantation for these patients results in significant reduction of sudden cardiac death [1-3]. ICD devices may be limited by right ventricle (RV) sensing dysfunction with low RV sensing amplitude. We present a clinical case of patient with DCM, implanted ICD and low R wave sensing on RV lead.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 993-1007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andre La Gerche ◽  
Aaron L. Baggish ◽  
Juhani Knuuti ◽  
David L. Prior ◽  
Sanjay Sharma ◽  
...  

Circulation ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 130 (suppl_2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuomas Kenttä ◽  
Bruce D Nearing ◽  
Kimmo Porthan ◽  
Jani T Tikkanen ◽  
Matti Viitasalo ◽  
...  

Introduction: Noninvasive identification of patients at risk for sudden cardiac death (SCD) remains a major clinical challenge. Abnormal ventricular repolarization is associated with increased risk of lethal ventricular arrhythmias and SCD. Hypothesis: We investigated the hypothesis that spatial repolarization heterogeneity can identify patients at risk for SCD in general population. Methods: Spatial R-, J- and T-wave heterogeneities (RWH, JWH and TWH, respectively) were automatically analyzed with second central moment technique from standard digital 12-lead ECGs in 5618 adults (46% men; age 50.9±12.5 yrs.) who took part in Health 2000 Study, an epidemiological survey representative of the entire Finnish adult population. During average follow-up of 7.7±1.4 years, a total of 72 SCDs occurred. Thresholds of RWH, JWH and TWH were based on optimal cutoff points from ROC curves. Results: Increased RWH, JWH and TWH (Fig.1) in left precordial leads (V4-V6) were univariately associated with SCD (P<0.001, each). When adjusted with clinical risk markers (age, gender, BMI, systolic blood pressure, cholesterol, heart rate, left ventricular hypertrophy, QRS duration, arterial hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease and previous myocardial infarction) JWH and TWH remained as independent predictors of SCD. Increased TWH (≥102μV) was associated with a 1.9-fold adjusted relative risk (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.2 - 3.1; P=0.011) and increased JWH (≥123μV) with a 2.0-fold adjusted relative risk for SCD (95% CI: 1.2 - 3.3; P=0.004). When both TWH and JWH were above threshold, the adjusted relative risk for SCD was 3.2-fold (95% CI: 1.7 - 6.2; P<0.001). When all heterogeneity measures (RWH, JWH and TWH) were above threshold, the risk for SCD was 3.7-fold (95% CI: 1.6 - 8.6; P=0.003). Conclusions: Automated measurement of spatial J- and T-wave heterogeneity enables analysis of high patient volumes and is able to stratify SCD risk in general population.


2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 37-41
Author(s):  
Zdravko Mijailovic ◽  
Zoran Stajic ◽  
Dragan Tavciovski ◽  
Radomir Matunovic

The entity of sudden cardiac death in young athletes has been known since the year 490 B.C. when young Greek soldier Phidipides had run the distance from Marathon to Athens and suddenly fell down dead. In the last twenty years, sudden death of famous athletes have attracted huge attention of medical and social community; afterwards both American and European Cardiology Societies started to publish periodically guidelines for preparticipation screening. These guidelines have focused on both identifying athletes with potential cardiovascular risk for sudden death and eligibility conditions for athletes participating in competitive sports. Structural and functional abnormalities causing sudden cardiac death in young athletes have been identified by autopsy-based studies. Unrecognized congenital cardiovascular abnormalities associated with excessive physical effort create background for electrophysiological instability and occurrence of malignant ventricular tachyarrhythmia and consequent death. The most frequent causes of sudden cardiac death in young athletes include hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, anomalies of the coronary arteries and idiopathic left ventricular hypertrophy. Current ACC/AHA & ESC guidelines should be widely used in order to reduce potential sudden cardiac death in young athletes.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey H Tison ◽  
Sean Abreau ◽  
Lisa Lim ◽  
Valentina Crudo ◽  
Joshua Barrios ◽  
...  

Background: Mitral valve prolapse (MVP) is a common valvulopathy, with a subset of MVP patients developing sudden cardiac death or cardiac arrest. Complex ventricular ectopy (ComVE) represents a marker of arrhythmic risk that is associated with myocardial fibrosis and increased mortality in MVP. We hypothesize that an ECG-based machine-learning model can identify MVP with ComVE and/or myocardial fibrosis on cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging. Methods: A deep convolutional neural network (CNN) was trained to detect ComVE using 6,916 12-lead ECGs from 569 MVP patients evaluated at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) between 2012 and 2020. A separate CNN was also trained to detect late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) using 87 ECGs from MVP patients with contrast CMR. Results: The prevalence of ComVE was 160/569 or 28% (20 patients or 3% had cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death). The area under the curve (AUC) of the CNN to detect ComVE was 0.81 (95% CI, 0.78-0.84). AUC remained high even after excluding patients with moderate-severe mitral regurgitation (MR) [0.80 (95% CI, 0.77-0.83)], or with bileaflet MVP [0.81 (95% CI, 0.76-0.85)]. The top ECG segments able to discriminate ComVE vs no ComVE were related to ventricular depolarization and repolarization (early-mid ST and QRS fromV1, V3, and III). LGE in the papillary muscles or basal inferolateral wall was present in 21 (24%) of 87 patients with available CMR. The AUC for detection of LGE was 0.75 (95% CI, 0.68-0.82). Conclusions: Standard 12-lead ECGs analyzed with machine learning can detect MVP at risk for ventricular arrhythmias and fibrosis and can identify novel ECG correlates of arrhythmic risk regardless of leaflet involvement or mitral regurgitation severity. ECG-based CNNs may help select those MVP patients requiring closer follow-up and/or a CMR. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 18-22
Author(s):  
V. A. Kachnov ◽  
V. V. Tyrenko ◽  
S. N. Kolubaeva ◽  
D. V. Cherkashin ◽  
G. G. Kutelev ◽  
...  

Abstract. The frequency of occurrence of arterial hypertension genes in individuals at risk of sudden cardiac death was studied. The relationship between risk factors for sudden cardiac death and the presence of polymorphisms of arterial hypertension genes was revealed. There was a high incidence of homozygous risk variants AGTR2 AA and CYP11B2 TT-polymorphisms responsible for the development of left ventricular hypertrophy, including in young individuals. A correlation was found between deaths in close relatives under 50 years of age and the presence of polymorphisms in the CYP11B2 344 CT gene in young people at risk of sudden cardiac death. We have obtained data indicating the feasibility of conducting a study of the polymorphism of the CYP11B2 gene in the presence of a risk of sudden cardiac death. A direct correlation was found between the presence of fatal outcomes in relatives under 50 years of age by the mechanism of sudden cardiac death and the number of homozygous variants of arterial hypertension genes. Mathematical models for predicting the presence of polymorphisms in genes responsible for the possibility of arterial hypertension are constructed. Among the constructed mathematical models, the most informative were models for detecting carriers of mutations in the genes ADD1 1378 GT, CYP11B2 344 CT and NOS3 894 GT. The expediency of the analysis to search for mutations of arterial hypertension genes, especially in the CYP11B2 344 CT gene, for the possibility of earlier and more intensive preventive measures in young people is shown. The data obtained indicate that there are relationships between the risk of sudden cardiac death, some known predictors of its occurrence, and the genes for arterial hypertension.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (Supplement_G) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrizio Sarto ◽  
Alessandro Zorzi ◽  
Laura Merlo ◽  
Teresina Vessella ◽  
Cinzia Pegoraro ◽  
...  

Abstract The primary objective of preparticipation cardiovascular evaluation (PPCE) in young athletes is to detect asymptomatic individuals with cardiovascular disease (CVD) at risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD). The study population included a consecutive series of competitive athletes age 12–18 years who underwent PPCE, which according to Italian law is mandatory and based on yearly evaluations, at the Center for Sports Medicine of Treviso (Veneto region of Italy), from 2009 to 2019. The screening protocol included personal and family history questionnaire, physical examination, resting 12-lead ECG, and limited stress testing for evaluation of exertional ventricular arrhythmias. 2,3 This latter test was performed using a bicycle with constant-load increases (i.e. 2 W/kg in female participants and 3 W/kg in male participants) for 3 min for at least 85% or more of maximal heart rate was achieved, plus 3 min of postexercise monitoring. 3 Athletes with a positive medical history and abnormal physical examination, ECG, or stress test underwent further investigations. The diagnostic yield of the initial screening session was compared with that of repeat PPCEs. Athletes with a definitive diagnosis of CVD at risk of SCD were considered ineligible for competitive sports, although they received a tailored programme for leisure physical activity and were enrolled in a yearly follow-up programme. Outcome data of screened athletes, either eligible or ineligible to play competitive sports, were obtained from office visits, hospital records, or interrogation of the Registry of Juvenile SCD of the Veneto region. The study population included 15 127 consecutive athletes (64% male, 96% White) who underwent a total of 53 396 annual PPCEs (mean 3.7 per athlete) over the 11-year study period. The median age at first screening was 13 years [interquartile range (IQR): 12–14]. Sixty-three athletes (65% male) were diagnosed with a CVD at risk of SCD such as congenital heart disease (n = 17), ion channel disease (n = 11), inherited cardiomyopathy (n = 13), isolated nonischaemic left ventricular scar (NLVS) with ventricular arrhythmias (n = 18), or other (n = 4); 266 athletes had cardiac conditions not associated with SCD. Seventeen of the 63 athletes (27%) with atrisk CVD had a positive family history, symptoms, or abnormal physical examination, 38 (60%) had ECG abnormalities, and 32 (51%) developed arrhythmias on limited exercise testing. CVDs more frequently identified on repeat evaluation included inherited cardiomyopathies [7/11 (64%)], NLVS with ventricular arrhythmias [15/18 (83%)], and long QT syndrome [7/11 (64%)]. During a mean follow-up of 6.7 ± 3.5 years, 1 athlete with a negative PPCE experienced an episode of aborted SCD attributable to ventricular fibrillation that remained unexplained after a comprehensive diagnostic workup (event rate, 0.98/100 000 athletes per year). These results show that annual cardiovascular screening of adolescent athletes increased by three times the diagnostic yield of CVD at risk of SCD compared with a once-only (initial) evaluation. Inherited cardiomyopathies and isolated NLVS with ventricular arrhythmias were the CVDs more frequently identified on repeat evaluation.


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