Abstract
Despite the well-known benefits of regular physical exercise on the cardiovascular system, there is a small population of young athletes (aged under 35 years) who carry an elevated risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) during exercise. The annual incidence of SCD in young athletes is about 0.5/100,000 per year in the United States and 2.1/100,000 in Italy, and it occurs in more than 90% of cases during or immediately after physical exercise. Sudden deaths are mostly due to cardiac abnormalities that might be identified, provided that appropriate screening of subjects who are candidate to agonistic sports is carried out. Such a psychologically overwhelming problem as the death of a young athlete during a sport competition led to the development of an effective cardiovascular screening program in Italy, which achieved a 89% reduction of the incidence of SCD over 26 years
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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Italia
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Perna, F. (2012). Electrocardiographic Signal Analysis. In: Fioranelli, M., Frajese, G. (eds) Sports Cardiology. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2775-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-2775-6_2
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