Inferolateral T wave inversion in athletes: phenotype-genotype correlation

Significant T wave inversion in young asymptomatic athletes is rare but poses a significant clinical challenge. Pre-participation sports screening programs identify such subjects. Clinical concern that such ECG changes represent an occult cardiomyopathy or forme fruste hypertrophic cardiomyopathy leads to diagnostic and therapeutic dilemma. We sought to genotype a cohort of such subjects with a normal cardiac phenotype identified in our unit over a 3-year period.

Ten athletes were referred from external screening. All exhibited deep T wave inversion inferolaterally. All had negative family history for sudden death and had a normal phenotype. A panel of 133 cardiac genes were screened.

Ten male subjects with mean age of 39 years were screened. Seven had no evidence of mutations. Three subjects demonstrated variants of uncertain significance in 5 different genes: alpha-2-actinin (ACTN2), myopalladin (MYPN), the calcium channel genes CACNA1C and TRPM4 and potassium channel gene KCNQ1. The variants found have not been described in cardiomyopathies or channelopathies. At 3-year follow-up, one patient had undergone detraining, and his ECG showed complete resolution of all T wave changes. He did not have any demonstrated variants.

The absence of mutations in target genes and heterogeneous sequence variations identified in this study suggest that inferolateral T wave inversion in athletes without a phenotype may potentially represent a benign repolarization syndrome related to athletic adaptation. This was the first study to assess a phenotype-genotype correlation in this population. Further genetic studies need to be undertaken in this area.