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. 2022 Sep 28:9:951882.
doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2022.951882. eCollection 2022.

The impact of UEFA Euro 2020 football championship on Takotsubo Syndrome: Results of a multicenter national registry

Alberto Polimeni  1 , Carmen Spaccarotella  2 , Jessica Ielapi  1 , Giovanni Esposito  2 , Amelia Ravera  3 , Eugenio Martuscelli  4 , Vincenzo Ciconte  5 , Maurizio Menichelli  6 , Ferdinando Varbella  7 , Massimo Imazio  8 , Alessandro Navazio  9 , Gianfranco Sinagra  10 , Rainer Oberhollenzer  11 , Gerolamo Sibilio  12 , Luisa Cacciavillani  13 , Luigi Meloni  14 , Marcello Dominici  15 , Fabrizio Tomai  16 , Francesco Amico  17 , Marco Corda  18 , Giuseppe Musumeci  19 , Alessandro Lupi  20 , Luigi Zezza  21 , Raffaele De Caterina  22 , Carlo Cernetti  23 , Marco Metra  24 , Lidia Rossi  25 , Paolo Calabrò  26 , Adriano Murrone  27 , Massimo Volpe  28 , Pasquale Caldarola  29 , Stefano Carugo  30 , Bernardo Cortese  31   32 , Renato Valenti  33 , Giuseppe Boriani  34 , Francesco Fedele  35 , Giorgio Ventura  36 , Maria Teresa Manes  37 , Angela Rita Colavita  38 , Mauro Feola  39 , Francesco Versaci  40   41 , Pasquale Assennato  42 , Giuseppe Arena  43 , Roberto Ceravolo  44 , Vincenzo Amodeo  45 , Gianfranco Tortorici  46 , Daniele Nassiacos  47 , Roberto Antonicelli  48 , Nicolino Esposito  49 , Stefano Favale  50 , Giovanni Licciardello  51 , Luigi Tedesco  52 , Ciro Indolfi  1   53
Affiliations

The impact of UEFA Euro 2020 football championship on Takotsubo Syndrome: Results of a multicenter national registry

Alberto Polimeni et al. Front Cardiovasc Med. .

Abstract

Objectives: The UEFA 2020 European Football Championship held in multiple cities across Europe from June 11 to July 11, 2021, was won by Italy, providing an opportunity to examine the relationship between emotional stress and the incidence of acute cardiovascular events (ACE).

Methods and results: Cardiovascular hospitalizations in the Cardiac Care Units of 49 hospital networks in Italy were assessed by emergency physicians during the UEFA Euro 2020 Football Championship. We compared the events that occurred during matches involving Italy with events that occurred during the remaining days of the championship as the control period. ACE was assessed in 1,235 patients. ACE during the UEFA Euro 2020 Football Championship semifinal and final, the most stressful matches ended with penalties and victory of the Italian team, were assessed. A significant increase in the incidence of Takotsubo Syndrome (TTS) by a factor of 11.41 (1.6-495.1, P < 0.003), as compared with the control period, was demonstrated during the semifinal and final, whereas no differences were found in the incidence of ACS [IRR 0.93(0.74-1.18), P = 0.57]. No differences in the incidence of ACS [IRR 0.98 (0.87-1.11; P = 0.80)] or TTS [IRR 1.66(0.80-3.4), P = 0.14] were found in the entire period including all matches of the UEFA Euro 2020 compared to the control period.

Conclusions: The data of this national registry demonstrated an association between the semifinal and final of UEFA Euro 2020 and TTS suggesting that it can be triggered by also positive emotions such as the victory in the European Football Championship finals.

Keywords: ACS; Takotsubo; angina pectoris; cardiomyopathies; cardiovascular disease.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Incidence rate ratios for ACE on days during the semifinal and final of UEFA Euro 2020 Football Championship, as compared with days during the control period. ACE during the semifinal and final, the most stressful matches ended with penalties, and the victory of the Italian team against Spain and England (A), showed a much more relevant increase in the incidence of Takotsubo Syndrome by a factor of 11.41 (p < 0.003) as compared with the control period. No differences were found in the incidence of ACS (P = 0.57) (B).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Geographic distribution of patients with Takotsubo Syndrome on days during the semifinal and final of UEFA Euro 2020 Football Championship.
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Comment in

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