The 5-minute screening echocardiogram for athletes.

BACKGROUND: Echocardiography is an accurate way to identify common cardiac abnormalities that lead to sudden death. We report a screening echocardiogram protocol incorporated into the routine athletic medical assessment for all incoming college freshman athletes. METHODS: A limited 2-dimensional echocardiogram was performed on athletes as part of a routine sports physical examination. The examination was performed by sonographers and senior cardiovascular medicine fellows and interpreted in real time by cardiologists using a 1-page checklist. No images were recorded. RESULTS: Of the 395 athletes representing 14 sports, 192 were female. The limited 2-dimensional echocardiogram took approximately 5 minutes per athlete. The majority of studies revealed normal findings (84%). A total of 55 had minor abnormalities not requiring follow-up. Five had abnormalities requiring a full echocardiogram and consultation with a cardiologist. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that a rapid screening echocardiogram is feasible and can be incorporated into the routine athletic medical examination for incoming varsity athletes.

Survey of current practices of the specialty of physicians interpreting cardiac and noncardiac findings of coronary computed tomographic angiography.

Computed tomographic angiography, as an imaging modality to evaluate the coronary arteries, has been rapidly expanding since the release of 64-slice machines. Little is known about current practice patterns. This study was conducted to evaluate current practice patterns and views regarding the interpretation of noncardiac findings by distributing a survey to the approximately 800 attendees of the first annual meeting of the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography in 2006. Of the 214 returned surveys, 16% were completed by radiologists and 82% by cardiologists. Ninety-nine subjects were experienced readers. At very few centers (9%), cardiologists read the cardiac and noncardiac portions. Few (9%) believed that cardiologists alone adequately interpreted noncardiac findings. Most subjects (72%) in the experienced and novice groups believed that the interpretation of noncardiac findings required input from the radiologists (p = 0.896). In conclusion, most survey respondents believed that radiologists and cardiologists should be involved in interpretation of coronary computed tomographic angiograms. In addition, coronary computed tomographic angiography and computed tomography for lung cancer should not be used as a screening tool, although computed tomography for calcium scoring is a reasonable screening tool.