Echocardiographic changes in the development of theathlete's heart in 9 to 20-year-old male subjects

Abstract

The purpose of this cross-sectional investigation was to estimate the age at which specific traits of the "athlete's heart" first appear and how they evolve from the beginning of regular physical training until young adulthood in healthy active males. Male athletes (n=389) and non-athletes (n=55) aged between 9 and 20 years were examined by two-dimensionally guided M-mode and Doppler echocardiography. Intragroup differences were examined by t-tests for independent samples between age groups of two years each. Morphologic variables were related to body size by using ratio indices in which the power terms of numerator and denominator were matched. Relative left ventricular muscle mass (LVMM) was significantly larger in the athletic males at age of 11-12, and this significant difference was maintained with advancing age. Most of this increase of LVMM could be attributed to the increase in wall thickness that became significantly manifest first in the 13- to 14-year-old athletic subjects but was demonstrable in all the other groups. A significantly larger left ventricular internal diameter was only found in the age-group of 15-16. Fractional shortening percentage (FS%) did not show any change, while resting heart rate was decreased in our athletic groups.

Development of structural cardiac adaptation in basketball players

“…Unfortunately, the majority of echocardiographic studies of young athletic populations have been conducted in the countries where basketball is not a popular game [10,[13][14][15][16]18]. Moreover, the results of the limited studies concerning basketball training-induced cardiac remodelling are contradictory.…”

Cardiac remodeling indicators in adolescent athletes

“…Manolas et al 20 refer to this age group as the period of greatest increase in cardiac chambers. In our study, the mean LV end-diastolic diameter was 1.7 mm greater in 15-year-old athletes compared to the mean value determined for athletes at an immediately younger age, i.e., 14 years.…”

Correlation between ECG changes and early left ventricular remodeling in preadolescent footballers

“…Also, the echocardiographic measurements observed in this study were lower than in the large-scale surveillance studies of preadolescent athletes. This can be explained by the intensity of training in athletes, which was a selected, predominantly moderate, training workload (14,19,21).…”