Περίληψη:
Background: Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) combined with late
gadolinium enhancement (LGE) has revealed a non-negligible increased
incidence of myocardial fibrosis (MF) in athletes compared to healthy
sedentary controls.Objective: The aim of this systematic research and
meta-analysis is to investigate and present our perspective regarding
CMR indices in athletes compared to sedentary controls, including T1
values, myocardial extracellular volume (ECV) and positive LGE
indicative of non-specific fibrosis, also to discuss the differences
between young and veteran athletes.Methods: The protocol included
searching, up to October 2021, of MEDLINE, EMBASE, SPORTDiscus, Web of
Science and Cochrane databases for original studies assessing fibrosis
via CMR in athletes. A mean age of 40 years differentiated studies’
athletic populations to veteran and young.Results: The research yielded
14 studies including in total 1,312 individuals. There was a
statistically significant difference in LGE fibrosis between the 118/759
athletes and 16/553 controls (Z = 5.2, P < 0.001, I-2 = 0%, P-I =
0.45). Notably, LGE fibrosis differed significantly between 546 (14.6%)
veteran and 140 (25.7%) young athletes (P = 0.002). At 1.5T, T1 values
differed between 117 athletes and 48 controls (P < 0.0001). A
statistically significant difference was also shown at 3T (110 athletes
vs. 41 controls, P = 0.0004), as well as when pooling both 1.5T and 3T
populations (P < 0.00001). Mean ECV showed no statistically significant
difference between these groups.Conclusions: Based on currently
available data, we reported that overall LGE based non-specific fibrosis
and T1 values differ between athletes and sedentary controls, in
contrast to ECV values. Age of athletes seems to have impact on the
incidence of MF. Future prospective studies should focus on the
investigation of the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms.
Συγγραφείς:
Androulakis, Emmanuel
Mouselimis, Dimitrios
Tsarouchas,
Anastasios
Antonopoulos, Alexios
Bakogiannis, Constantinos and
Papagkikas, Panagiotis
Vlachopoulos, Charalambos
