Aortic Root Dilation in Athletes

The hearts of highly conditioned athletes can undergo changes that are difficult to distinguish from cardiac pathology; for example, left ventricular (LV) remodeling can look like LV hypertrophy. The same difficulty can occur with aortic root dilation, which is thought to be normal in athletes who generate significant LV outflow and pressure. An expert consensus statement recommends a transverse aortic root diameter of 40 mm in men and 34 mm in women as the upper limit of normal in athletes, but the epidemiology is unclear.

Using data from the Italian National Olympic Committee, researchers identified 2317 competitive elite athletes (28% world-class; 1300 men) without structural heart disease who had baseline echocardiography and were follow…