Something to lean on
The recommendations are welcome, said James E. Udelson, MD, chief of the division of cardiology at Tufts Medical Center, Boston, coauthor of an accompanying editorial.
“It was a bit of the wild west out there, because each university, each college, all with good intentions, had been all struggling to figure out what to do, and how much to do. Probably the most important message from this new paper is the fact that now there is something out there that all coaches, athletes, families, schools, trainers can get some guidance from,” Dr. Udelson said in an interview.
Refining the cardiac screening criteria was a necessary step, Dr. Udelson said.
“How much cardiac imaging do you do? That is a matter of controversy,” said Dr. Udelson, who coauthored the commentary with Tufts cardiologist Ethan Rowin, MD, and Michael A. Curtis, MEd, a certified strength and conditioning specialist at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. “The problem is that if you use a very sensitive imaging test on a lot of people, sometimes you find things that you really didn’t need to know about. They’re really not important. And now, the athlete is told he or she cannot play for 3 months because they might have myocarditis.
“Should we be too sensitive, meaning do we want to pick up anything no matter whether it’s important or not?” he added. “There will be a lot of false positives, and we are going to disqualify a lot of people. Or do you tune it a different way?”
Dr. Udelson said he would like to see commercial sports donate money to support research into the potential cardiotoxicity of COVID-19.
“If the organizations that benefit from these athletes, like the National Collegiate Athletic Association and professional sports leagues, can fund some of this research, that would be a huge help,” Dr. Udelson said.
“These are the top sports cardiologists in the country, and they have to start somewhere, and these are all based on what we know right now, as well as their own extensive experience. We all know that we are just at the beginning of our knowledge of this. But we have to have something to guide this huge community out there that is really thirsty for help.”
Dr. Baggish reports receiving research funding for the study of athletes in competitive sports from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Football League Players Association; and the American Heart Association and receiving compensation for his role as team cardiologist from the US Olympic Committee/US Olympic Training Centers, US Soccer, US Rowing, the New England Patriots, the Boston Bruins, the New England Revolution, and Harvard University. Dr. Udelson has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.
A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.