The American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) has released a guidance document regarding cardiovascular imaging in athletes. The guidance was published May 11 in the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography.
The ASE developed the document -- called "Recommendations on the Use of Multimodality Cardiovascular Imaging in Young Adult Competitive Athletes" -- to address how clinicians can best image athletes, who can experience cardiac structure and function changes over the course of their lives. It was developed in collaboration with the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) and the Society for Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance (SCMR).
"Multimodality imaging is of paramount importance in the clinical care of athletes and highly active people," said Dr. Aaron Baggish of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in a statement released by the ASE. Baggish was the lead author of the guidance. "To do this well requires an understanding of what constitutes normal in this population coupled with the use of a strategic approach to test selection and interpretation."
