Abstract:
Intensive physical exercise leads to increases in
left ventricular muscle mass and wall thickness. Cardiac
magnetic resonance imaging allows the assessment of
functional and morphological changes in an athlete’s heart.
In addition, a native T1 mapping technique has been suggested
as a non-contrast method to detect myocardial
fibrosis. The aim of this study was to show the correlation
between athletes’ cardiac modifications and myocardial
fibrosis with a native T1 mapping technique. A total of 41
healthy non-athletic control subjects and 46 athletes
underwent CMR imaging. After the functional and morphological
assessments, native T1 mapping was performed
in all subjects using 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging.
Most of the CMR findings were significantly higher in
athletes who had C5 years of sports activity when compared
with non-athletic controls and athletes who had
\5 years of sports activity. Significantly higher results
were shown in native T1 values in athletes who had
\5 years of sports activity, but there were no significant
differences in the left ventricular end-diastolic volume, left
ventricular end-diastolic mass, or interventricular septal
wall thickness between non-athletic controls and athleteswho had \5 years of sports activity. The native T1 mapping
technique has the potential to discriminate myocardial
fibrotic changes in athletes when compared to a normal
myocardium. The T1 mapping method might be a feasible
technique to evaluate athletes because it does not involve
contrast, is non-invasive and allows for easy evaluation of
myocardial remodeling.
