Heart 2008;94:1254-1255
EDITORIALS
Echocardiographic assessment of left ventricular hypertrophy in elite athletes
International Centre for Circulatory Health, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, St Mary’s Hospital, London W2 1LA, UK
Dr Jamil Mayet, International Centre for Circulatory Health, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, St Mary’s Hospital, London W2 1LA, UK; j.mayet@ic.ac.uk
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Intense, sustained physical activity results, over time, in physiological conditioning. In aiming to optimise cardiovascular performance, the heart undergoes quite dramatic changes. Some of these physiological changes, in particular those relating to myocardial hypertrophy, may mimic pathological states, which are well known to pose cardiovascular risk.
The description of "athlete’s heart" first appears in the literature in 1899, with Henschen1 reporting the changes associated with cross-country skiing. Using only physical examination, and careful percussion, he was able to describe enlargement of both the left and right heart. He concluded that these changes were favourable in improving performance.
With the advent of modern echocardiography and other imaging techniques, these changes have been further observed and documented. Over the years, opinion has ranged from the one extreme of considering these changes favourable in order to optimise cardiovascular performance, to the other extreme of considering these physiological changes potentially dangerous. More important clinically
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Article
- Alterations in myocardial stiffness in elite athletes assessed by a new Doppler index
- G J King, R T Murphy, I Almuntaser, K Bennett, E Ho, and A S Brown
Heart 2008 94: 1323-1325.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
-
All Versions of this Article:
hrt.2008.153783v1
94/10/1254 most recent - Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
-
Drugs: cardiovascular system
-
Echocardiography
-
Clinical diagnostic tests
-
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
-
Hypertension
- Relevant Article
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
