The Role of Multimodality Imaging in Athlete’s Heart Diagnosis: Current Status and Future Directions

Abstract

“Athlete’s heart” is a spectrum of morphological and functional changes which occur in the heart of people who practice physical activity. When athlete’s heart occurs with its most marked expression, it may overlap with a differential diagnosis with certain structural cardiac diseases, including cardiomyopathies, valvular diseases, aortopathies, myocarditis, and coronary artery anomalies. Identifying the underlying cardiac is essential to reduce the potential for sudden cardiac death. For this purpose, a spectrum of imaging modalities, including rest and exercise stress echocardiography, speckle tracking echocardiography, cardiac magnetic resonance, computed tomography, and nuclear scintigraphy, can be undertaken. The objective of this review article is to provide to the clinician a practical step-by-step approach, aiming at distinguishing between extreme physiology and structural cardiac disease during the athlete’s cardiovascular evaluation.

The eSports Medicine: Pre-Participation Screening and Injuries Management—An Update

“…A medical evaluation investigating family and personal history, performing a comprehensive physical examination, and using a resting ECG, together with a resting BP value, may be appropriate to identify most cardiovascular conditions that may increase the risk of sudden death in young players. Echocardiography, Holter ECG and magnetic resonance imaging can play a role as a second and third line of athlete’s heart diagnosis [ 95 ].…”

Multimodality Imaging in Cardiomyopathies with Hypertrophic Phenotypes

“…HCM caused by mutations in sarcomeric genes must be differentiated by other conditions which may mimic HCM phenotype but show a different aetiology and treatment [4,5,9,[24][25][26][27]. In this paragraph, we will focus on cardiac amyloidosis and Fabry disease, which represent possible causes of non-sarcomeric HCM in adult and elderly patients (Table 1).…”

The Changing Complementary Role of Multimodality Imaging in Clinical Cardiology

“…In these situations, a precise differential diagnosis is of paramount importance. This can be reached by applying an appropriate and selective approach to different imaging modalities, including rest and exercise stress echocardiography, speckle tracking echocardiography, cardiac magnetic resonance, computed tomography and nuclear scintigraphy [ 28 , 29 ]. In the presence of premature ventricular beats in athletes, cardiac magnetic resonance can be useful even when echocardiography is normal for the identification of nonischemic left ventricular scars and, potentially, arrhythmogenic substrates [ 30 ].…”