Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy in an Endurance Athlete Presenting with Ventricular Tachycardia and Normal Right Ventricular Function

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance clarifies arrhythmogenicity in asymptomatic young athletes with ventricular arrhythmias undergoing pre-participation evaluation

Pre-participation sports examination (PPE) is a frequent reason for consultation. However, the exact role of cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) in PPE remains undefined. The additive value of CMR in adolescent athletes with ventricular rhythm disturbances (VRDs) was investigated. We prospectively recruited and evaluated with CMR 50 consecutive, asymptomatic young athletes referred to our tertiary center after identification of VRDs on electrocardiogram (ECG) with otherwise normal standard PPE and echocardiography, and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy volunteer athletes who underwent the same evaluations. The primary outcome was case-control status and the secondary outcome was the discrimination between athletes with VRDs with and without non-sustained ventricular tachycardia (VT). CMR identified arrhythmogenic substrates in all athletes with VRDs. The predominant condition was myocarditis and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy in patients with and without VT, respectively. Based on penalized regression analysis, late gadolinium enhancement (LGE), early gadolinium enhancement (EGE), extracellular volume fraction (ECV), and T2-mapping, best distinguished between case-control status. The aforementioned indices predicted case-control status independent of age and sex: EGE [Odds ratio (95% confidence interval): 6.89 (2.19-21.62) per 0.5-unit, P<0.001], LGE (perfect prediction), ECV [1.66 (1.25-2.22), P<0.001] and T2 mapping [1.40 (1.13-1.72), P=0.002], among other independent CMR-derived predictors. Only indexed ventricular volumes independently discriminated between VRD patients with and without VT. In this study, asymptomatic young athletes with VRDs and normal PPE/echocardiography were optimally discriminated from healthy control athletes by CMR-derived indices, and CMR allowed for the identification of arrhythmogenic substrates in all cases.

Cardiac magnetic resonance based deformation imaging: role of feature tracking in athletes with suspected arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy

Both, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC) and regular training are associated with right ventricular (RV) remodelling. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is given an important role in the diagnosis of ARVC in current task force criteria (TFC), however, they contain no cut-off values for athletes. We aimed to confirm the added value of feature tracking and to provide new cut-off values to differentiate between ARVC and athlete's heart. Healthy athletes with training of minimal 15 h/week (n = 34), patients with definite ARVC (n = 34) and highly trained athletes with ARVC (n = 8) were examined by CMR. Left and right ventricular volumes and masses were determined. Global right and left ventricular, and regional strain analysis for the RV free wall was performed using feature tracking on balanced steady-state free precession cine images. 94% of healthy athletes showed RV dilatation of the proposed TFC, 14.7% showed RV ejection fraction (RVEF) between 45-50%, none of them had RVEF < 45%. Although RVEF showed the highest accuracy in differentiating between athlete's heart and ARVC, only 37.5% of athletes with ARVC showed RVEF < 45%. The only parameters falling in the pathological range (based on our established cut-off values: > - 25.6 and > - 1.4, respectively) in all athletes with ARVC were the strain and strain rate of the midventricular RV free wall. Establishing RVEF and RV strain analysis provides an important tool to distinguish ARVC from athlete's heart. CMR based regional strain and strain rate values may help to identify ARVC even in highly trained athletes with preserved RVEF.