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Criteria for interpretation of the athlete's ECG: A critical appraisal
Author(s) -
Zorzi Alessandro,
Vio Riccardo,
Bettella Natascia,
Corrado Domenico
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
pacing and clinical electrophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.686
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1540-8159
pISSN - 0147-8389
DOI - 10.1111/pace.14001
Subject(s) - medicine , athletes , sudden cardiac death , warrant , interpretation (philosophy) , critical appraisal , identification (biology) , disease , intensive care medicine , cardiology , physical therapy , pathology , alternative medicine , botany , computer science , economics , financial economics , biology , programming language
The electrocardiogram (ECG) is cheap and widely available but its use as a screening tool for early identification of athletes with a cardiac disease at risk of sudden cardiac death is controversial because of presumed low specificity. In the last decade, several efforts have been made to improve the distinction between physiological and pathological ECG findings in the athlete, leading to continuous evolution of the interpretation criteria. The most recent 2017 International criteria grouped ECG changes into three categories: normal, borderline, and abnormal. Borderline findings warrant further investigations only when two or more are present while abnormal changes should always be considered as the sign of a possible underlying disease. This review encompasses the evolution of the athlete's ECG interpretation criteria and highlights areas of uncertainty that will need to be addressed by further studies.