Prevalence of arrhythmias in a population of athletes ineligible for competitive sports activity
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Abstract
The presence of arrhythmias is a frequent finding in athletes during the competitive sports medical examination, and, among those, as most often observed, we find ventricular ectopic beats (VEBs). VEBs can occur in athletes with or without heart disease, so it is of fundamental importance to identify those characteristics that give VEBs a greater risk of being associated with structural heart diseases. With this study, we wanted to analyze the prevalence of common and uncommon, sport-related ventricular ectopic beats in a population of athletes declared ineligible for competitive sports activity during the maximal ergometric test at the Sports Medicine clinic of Bolzano from 01/01/2016 to 31/05/2024, studying their morphology, complexity (couplets, triplets, NSVT), relationship with exertion and correlation with the type of sport practiced. We also analyzed the further examinations carried out following the finding of VEBs, whose outcome contributed to determining the ineligibility for competitive sports activity in patients with complex arrhythmia.
The secondary aim of the study was to evaluate the correlation between the presence of VEBs and the outcome of the second and third level examinations carried out (echocardiography, Holter ECG, magnetic resonance, coronary CT, stress echo). We wanted to evaluate the presence of underlying pathologies, highlighting the importance of the sports medical examination as a screening method to unmask asymptomatic cardiac pathologies.
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