AUTHOR=Cavarretta Elena , Sciarra Luigi , Biondi-Zoccai Giuseppe , Maffessanti Francesco , Nigro Antonia , Sperandii Fabio , Guerra Emanuele , Quaranta Federico , Fossati Chiara , Peruzzi Mariangela , Pingitore Annachiara , Stasinopoulos Dimitrios M. , Rigby Robert A. , Adorisio Rachele , Saglietto Andrea , Calò Leonardo , Frati Giacomo , Pigozzi Fabio 

TITLE=Age-Related Electrocardiographic Characteristics of Male Junior Soccer Athletes

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine

VOLUME=Volume 8 - 2021

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cardiovascular-medicine/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2021.784170

DOI=10.3389/fcvm.2021.784170

ISSN=2297-055X

ABSTRACT=Introduction: Very limited data exist on normal age-related ECGs variations in adolescents and no data have been published regarding the ECG anomalies induced by intensive training, which are relevant in pre-participation screening for sudden cardiac death prevention in the adolescent athletic population. The purpose of this study was to establish normal age-related electrocardiographic measurements (P wave duration, PR interval, QRS duration, QT and QTc interval) grouped according to 2-year age intervals.
Methods: 2151 consecutive healthy adolescent Soccer athletes (trained for a mean of 7.2±1.1 hours per week 100% male Caucasians, mean age 12.4±1.4 years, range 7-18) underwent pre-participation screening, which included ECG and transthoracic echocardiography in a single referral center.
Results: Heart rate progressively slowed as age increased (p<0.001, ranging from 80.8±13.2 to 59.5±10.2 bpm), as expected. P wave, PR interval and QRS duration significantly increased in older age classes (p=0.019, p=0.001 and p<0.001 respectively) and after Bonferroni's correction the difference remained significant in all age classes for QRS duration. QTc interval diminished progressively with increasing age (p=0.003) while QT interval increased progressively (p<0.001, Table 1).
Conclusions: Significant variations in normal ECG characteristics of young athletes exist between different age groups related to increasing age and training burden, thus, age-specific reference values could be adopted, as already done for echocardiographic measurements, and may help to further discriminate potentially pathologic conditions.