The Athlete's Heart Study 2

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    The Athlete's Heart Study 2: Effects of Detraining on Cardiac Structure and Function

  • IRAS ID

    213439

  • Contact name

    Peter Swoboda

  • Contact email

    p.swoboda@leeds.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Leeds

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    2 years, 0 months, 1 days

  • Research summary

    Heart muscle disease (cardiomyopathy) is the main cause of sudden death in young athletes. The diagnosis is usually made using cardiac imaging and relies upon the identification of an increase in size of the heart. However the heart, like any other muscle, gets bigger and stronger as a result of training. Therefore differentiating cardiomyopathy from a normal athletic heart can be very difficult. Once a diagnosis of cardiomyopathy is made the athlete has to stop participation in competitive sport and it is therefore very important that it is made quickly and accurately.

    At present if cardiomyopathy is suspected in an athlete they must stop participation in sport to undergo “detraining”. If their heart remains enlarged despite detraining they are diagnosed with cardiomyopathy. This process takes at least three months and is very unpopular with athletes.

    We have already demonstrated that it is possible to detect cellular changes in athletes’ hearts using magnetic resonance imaging. We plan to recruit athletes when they present to the emergency department with a broken bone that will stop training. By carrying out comprehensive heart scans we will establish how quickly their heart returns to a normal size after stopping sport. We will also establish if cellular changes in the first scan can predict the how quickly their heart will return to normal. We expect that these findings will provide a new diagnostic test that could shorten the amount of time that an athlete needs to detrain for or even remove the need for detraining altogether.

  • REC name

    East Midlands - Nottingham 1 Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    16/EM/0399

  • Date of REC Opinion

    5 Oct 2016

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion