Myocarditis in athlete and myocardial bridge: An innocent bystander?

Abstract

Myocarditis is a bacterial or viral inflammatory disease, often unnoticed or misdiagnosed. Athletes with myocarditis must stop practicing their activity since International medical Literature described some cases of sudden death. In the present report, we describe a case of an asymptomatic, apparently healthy, competitive athletes, who was diagnosed a myocarditis and as incidental finding a myocardial bridging. We focused the attention on the importance of anamnesis, electrocardiogram and athletes’ entourage for the diagnosis of such insidious pathologies and we evaluated the follow up, focusing the attention on electrocardiogram changes as well as on restitution ad integrum and prognosis, especially for the athletes.

Keywords: Myocarditis; Sudden cardiac death; Pre-participation screening

Core tip: Pre participation screening allows sports physicians to diagnose potential causes of sudden death in athletes. We describe a case of an athlete with a previous myocarditis, and an incidental myocardial bridging, suspended from competition and followed in the later time. We also pointed out the question of the possible scarring of myocarditis in relation to the restart of physical activity and training.