From the Heart of the Athlete to Athlete’s Heart to Cardiopathy: Approaches and Challenges in Risk Management in Cardiovascular Sports Medicine

Exercise stress testing is a widely used tool for cardiovascular screening in individuals involved in leisure and/or competitive sport activities. While it can be effective in identifying certain heart conditions, it has several limitations. For instance, the criteria for test termination in apparently healthy participants have not been unequivocally established. It should be considered that the standard testing cannot reliably detect all exercise-related cardiovascular problems, such as those related to borderline hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and certain arrhythmias. Similar limitations apply to cardiac stress imaging. Undoubtedly, the normal test results cannot rule out the possibility of sudden cardiac death in athletes.

Medical specialists are often deemed responsible for ensuring patient safety and may be held legally liable, depending on local laws and regulation, for injuries or death related to sport practice. Hence, the question of when the heart of an athlete remains the athlete’s heart and when instead it becomes cardiopathic requires careful consideration and continuous investigation into the role and consequences of the structural and functional changes involved and the methods of their detection and evaluation. Recognizing the risks and limitations of available screening tools, such as exercise stress testing, echocardiogram, cardiac stress imaging, genetic testing, can drive research and development of more accurate and effective methods for pre-participation screening of all individuals and for evaluation of athletes.

This Research Topic aims to highlight the role of sports medicine and cardiovascular medicine and discuss the tools available for prevention and early detection of the risk of sudden cardiac death in individuals of different age and gender practicing sport at non-agonistic and agonistic level.

We accept all types of articles that delve into various aspects of cardiovascular sports medicine and its role in the prevention of sudden cardiac death in athletes. The suggested topics include, but are not limited to the following issues:

1. Influence of different types of sport and training protocols on physiological adaptations in athletes; benefits and risks associated with the development of athlete’s heart.
2. Tools for cardiovascular screening and their limitations.
3. Prevention, early detection and management of cardiopathy in athletes.
4. Role of exercise and different types of sport activities in cardiac health and rehabilitation.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Exercise Stress Testing, Athlete’s Heart, Sudden Cardiac Death, Cardiovascular Screening, Cardiac Stress Imaging, Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, Sports Cardiology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.