Pre-participation Cardiovascular Screening of Elderly Wrestlers

Purpose: sudden death of a competitive athlete is a tragedy that isusually caused by a previously unsuspected cardiovascular disease.the aim of this study was to clarify the role of noninvasive testingin pre-participation cardiovascular evaluation of elderly wrestlers.methods: we included 63 iranian elderly wrestlers whoparticipated in tehran international elderly wrestlers’ preparationcamping by census method. a questionnaire including past medicaland family history as well as coronary risk factors was filled outand then a complete physical examination of the cardiovascularsystem was done by an internist for all wrestlers.electrocardiogram (ecg), complete echocardiographicexamination and then symptom limited exercise test wereperformed and reported by the cardiologists who did not know theother examinations results.results: exertional dyspnea and typical chest pain (fc=i or ii)were present in 5% and 1.7% of the examinees, respectively. therewere one or more risk factors in 64.5% of the cases. cardiovascularexamination revealed abnormal heart sounds in 27.1%. ecgshowed ischemic changes in 13.6% and premature atrialcontractions and premature ventricular contractions in 11.4%.echocardiography showed mild left ventricular systolic dysfunctionin 3.4%, regional wall motion abnormality in 8.5%, valvulardisease in 32.3%, diastolic dysfunction in 45.7%, and leftventricular hypertrophy in 16.9% of the cases. exercise test resultswere negative, equivocal, positive and highly positive in 70.4%,15.8%, 5.2%, and 8.6% of cases, respectively.conclusion: beside physical examination, pre-participationscreening of elderly wrestling athletes with ecg and exercisetesting is feasible and recommended in the presence of coronaryrisk factors or cardiac symptoms. echocardiography can also berecommended to detect other relevant abnormalities when there isa clue in the standard history, physical examination or ecg.