Pediatric Preventive Cardiology

Assessing athletes beyond routine screening: Incorporating essential factors to optimize cardiovascular health and performance

“…While a screening visit increases the chance of detecting a predisposing condition, it is also an opportunity to assess an athletes' overall health in detail, including how to develop sustainable and advantageous healthy behaviors while also controlling underlying health factors that could predispose to early CVD risk [ 7 , 8 ]. It also provides an opening to highlight that athletes are not immune to CVD and may in some cases be at higher risk of developing pathophysiologic changes to the cardiovascular system such as coronary calcification, atrial arrhythmias, and myocardial fibrosis [ 9 , 10 ].…”