Heart failure & cardiomyopathies
Cardiovascular magnetic resonance to differentiate veteran athlete’s heart with cavity dilatation and mild dilated cardiomyopathy
Authors' conclusion
Septal fibrosis is rare amongst veteran athletes with LV dilation in contrast to mild DCM patients. Native T1, ECV, and RVEDVi can also discriminate between these overlapping phenotypes
Study context
- Population
- Participants with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) > 40% and LVEDVi ≥ 110 mL/m² without ischaemic heart disease or significant cardiac pathology on cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) likely to cause heart failure (HF)
- Participants
- 113 participants
- Exposure
- Veteran athletes with left ventricular (LV) dilatation vs mild dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients
- Athletesn = 64
- Mild DCMn = 49reference
- Outcome
- Distribution of myocardial fibrosis and patterns of tissue characteristics on CMR
Methodological detailsage-/sex-matched
- Age-/sex-matched
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
Fibrosis distribution (participants with fibrosis)
Inferolateral fibrosis
P = 0.002
Inferoseptal fibrosis
P = 0.002
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Native T1
P < 0.001
ECV
P < 0.001
RVEDVi
P < 0.001
| Outcome | Athletes | Mild DCM | P value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Myocardial perfusion reserve | 3.65 ± 1.30 | 2.76 ± 0.92 | P < 0.001 |
| Stress myocardial blood flow | 2.09 ± 0.70 | 1.62 ± 0.66 | P < 0.001 |
Discrimination between groups (ROC analysis)
- Native T1 AUC
- 0.89 (P < 0.001)
- Extracellular volume (ECV) AUC
- 0.85 (P < 0.001)
- RVEDVi AUC
- 0.81 (P < 0.001)
- Stress myocardial blood flow (MBF) AUC
- 0.68 (P = 0.002)
Original publication
Cardiovascular magnetic resonance to differentiate veteran athlete’s heart with cavity dilatation and mild dilated cardiomyopathy. Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Imaging. Published 9 August 2025. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →