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Cardiac screening for athletes is widely accepted; however, whether electrocardiograms and echocardiograms are necessary components of the workup is not generally agreed upon. The rationale for including these studies is to uncover athletes with asymptomatic hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) so that measures can be taken to prevent sudden cardiac deaths.
The British Lawn Tennis Association, the Premiership football and rugby league, and the U.K. national swimming and boxing squads mandate screening that includes history, physical, 12-lead ECG, and echocardiography for their elite athletes. This study involved a largely white population of 3500 of those athletes, who were examined at four different institutions under the direction of a single…