[Validity of electrocardiographic indices of left ventricular hypertrophy in athletes]

The Authors have evaluated the reliability of the most important electrocardiographic criteria for left ventricular hypertrophy in a group of 95 athletes. An ECG and a M- and B-mode echocardiogram have been performed in each subject; the criteria by Sokolow and Lyon, by Cornell, by Gubner, by Romhilt and Estes and by Casale have been employed to evaluate left ventricular hypertrophy. Left ventricular mass has been evaluated by the echocardiogram according to Devereux and coll. The electrocardiographic method by Casale and coll., proposed only for a few years, is based on the valuation of R wave and on the study of ventricular repolarization depending on sex and age. By this method, still now not much used in the study of athletes, a good correlation with the echocardiographic data was expected, in relation to the young age of the population. The athletes have been divided into three groups, practising aerobic sports, aerobic-anaerobic sports and power sports, according to the physiologic classification of the sports activities of Dal Monte. Using the chi-squared test, for the whole population and separately for the three groups, no significant statistical correlation has been observed. In conclusion, the results demonstrate that not only the "classic" criteria, but also the most recent ECG criteria of left ventricular hypertrophy are not reliable in evaluating left ventricular hypertrophy in trained athletes, leaving the final assessment of the real state of the cardiac chambers to echocardiography.