Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Oct 18;10(1):15.
doi: 10.1186/s44156-023-00027-8.

The athlete's heart: insights from echocardiography

Harry Flanagan  1 , Robert Cooper  1 , Keith P George  1 , Daniel X Augustine  2   3 , Aneil Malhotra  4 , Maria F Paton  5 , Shaun Robinson  6 , David Oxborough  7
Affiliations
Review

The athlete's heart: insights from echocardiography

Harry Flanagan et al. Echo Res Pract. .

Abstract

The manifestations of the athlete's heart can create diagnostic challenges during an echocardiographic assessment. The classifications of the morphological and functional changes induced by sport participation are often beyond 'normal limits' making it imperative to identify any overlap between pathology and normal physiology. The phenotype of the athlete's heart is not exclusive to one chamber or function. Therefore, in this narrative review, we consider the effects of sporting discipline and training volume on the holistic athlete's heart, as well as demographic factors including ethnicity, body size, sex, and age.

Keywords: Athlete’s heart; Echocardiography; Pre-participation screening; Sports cardiology.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Multifactorial nature of the athlete’s heart
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Pelliccia A, Caselli S, Sharma S, Basso C, Bax JJ, Corrado D, et al. European Association of Preventive Cardiology (EAPC) and European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) joint position statement: recommendations for the indication and interpretation of cardiovascular imaging in the evaluation of the athlete’s heart. Eur Heart J. 2017;39(21):1949–1969. - PubMed
    1. D’Ascenzi F, Oxborough D. Medical Evaluation of Athletes: Echocardiography. In: Pressler A, Niebauer J, editors. Textbook of Sports and Exercise Cardiology [Internet]. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2020. 10.1007/978-3-030-35374-2_8
    1. Pelliccia A, Sharma S, Gati S, Bäck M, Börjesson M, Caselli S, et al. 2020 ESC Guidelines on sports cardiology and exercise in patients with cardiovascular disease. Eur Heart J. 2021;42(1):17–96. - PubMed
    1. Brosnan MJ, Rakhit D. Differentiating athlete’s heart from cardiomyopathies—the left side. Heart Lung Circ. 2018;27(9):1052–1062. - PubMed
    1. Qasem M, George K, Somauroo J, Forsythe L, Brown B, Oxborough D. Influence of different dynamic sporting disciplines on right ventricular Structure and function in elite male athletes. Int J Cardiovasc Imaging. 2018;34(7):1067–1074. - PubMed