Abstract
BACKGROUND Electrocardiography (ECG) may be performed as part of preparticipation sports screening. Recommendations on screening of athletes to identify individuals with previously unrecognized cardiac disease are robust; however, data guiding the preparticipation screening of unselected populations are scarce. T wave inversion (TWI) on ECG may suggest an undiagnosed cardiomyopathy. This study aims to describe the prevalence of abnormal TWI in an unselected young male cohort and the outcomes of an echocardiography-guided approach to investigating these individuals for structural heart diseases, focusing on the yield for cardiomyopathies. METHODS AND RESULTS Consecutive young male individuals undergoing a national preparticipation cardiac screening program for 39 months were studied. All underwent resting supine 12-lead ECG. Those manifesting abnormal TWI, defined as negatively deflected T waves of at least 0.1 mV amplitude in any 2 contiguous leads, underwent echocardiography. A total of 69 714 male individuals with a mean age of 17.9±1.1 years were studied. Of the individuals, 562 (0.8%) displayed abnormal TWI. This was most frequently observed in the anterior territory and least so in the lateral territory. A total of 12 individuals (2.1%) were diagnosed with a cardiomyopathy. Cardiomyopathy diagnoses were significantly associated with deeper maximum TWI depth and the presence of abnormal TWI in the lateral territory, but not with abnormal TWI in the anterior and inferior territories. No individual presenting with TWI restricted to solely leads V(1) to V(2), 2 inferior leads or both was diagnosed with a cardiomyopathy. CONCLUSIONS Cardiomyopathy diagnoses were more strongly associated with certain patterns of abnormal TWI. Our findings may support decisions to prioritize echocardiography in these individuals.