Clinical Profile and Quality of Life of Adult Patients After the Fontan Procedure.

Increasingly, more patients with univentricular heart reach adulthood. Therefore, long-term psychological features are an important concern. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinical and psychological profile of post-Fontan adult patients and to identify the most significant determinants of quality of life.

12-lead Holter monitoring in diving and water sports: a preliminary investigation.

Objective: To demonstrate the utility of 12-lead Holter monitoring underwater.

Methods: A Holter monitor, recording a 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) underwater, was applied to 16 pre-trained volunteer scuba divers (13 males and three females). Dive computers were synchronized with the Holter recorder to correlate the ECG tracings with diving events.

Exercise-induced normalization of right precordial negative T waves in arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy.

Negative T waves (NTWs) in right precordial leads (V₁ to V₃) may be observed on the electrocardiogram (ECG) of healthy subjects but can also represent the hallmark of an underlying arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC). It has been a consistent observation that NTWs usually become upright with exercise in healthy subjects without underlying heart disease. No systematic study has evaluated exercise-induced changes of NTWs in ARVC.

Prevalence of cardiomyopathy in Italian asymptomatic children with electrocardiographic T-wave inversion at preparticipation screening.

Background: T-wave inversion on a 12-lead ECG is usually dismissed in young people as normal persistence of the juvenile pattern of repolarization. However, T-wave inversion is a common ECG abnormality of cardiomyopathies such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, which are leading causes of sudden cardiac death in athletes. We prospectively assessed the prevalence, age relation, and underlying cardiomyopathy of T-wave inversion in children undergoing preparticipation screening.

How to screen athletes for cardiovascular diseases.

The Italian screening protocol has adequate sensitivity and specificity for detection of potentially dangerous cardiovascular diseases, and substantially reduces mortality of young competitive athletes, mostly by preventing sudden cardiac death from cardiomyopathy. The results of the Italian preparticipation evaluation program have significant implications worldwide: this article addresses the efficacy and feasibility of preparticipation screening, essentially based on 12-lead ECG, as has been in practice in Italy for 25 years.

Trends in sudden cardiovascular death in young competitive athletes after implementation of a preparticipation screening program.

Context: A nationwide systematic preparticipation athletic screening was introduced in Italy in 1982. The impact of such a program on prevention of sudden cardiovascular death in the athlete remains to be determined.

Objective: To analyze trends in incidence rates and cardiovascular causes of sudden death in young competitive athletes in relation to preparticipation screening.