The athletic control group without COVID showed 24% (1 in 4) scarring in the heart muscle while the COVID athlete group had a 27% (1 in 4) scarring ratio. According to Clark, athletes commonly have a small area of benign scar due to athletic remodeling. This scarring related to athletic changes was evident in both athletic groups studied.
"This particular piece of information is very important to share - myocarditis after COVID-19 tends to be in a similar spot," he said. "Without the knowledge that this area of scarring is common in healthy athletes, clinicians could attribute the scarring to consequences from COVID-19. Those assumptions might unnecessarily restrict some athletes from competition."
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Clark says his team's findings suggest that the addition of cardiac MRI as an assessment tool for athletes may be very helpful in determining safe return-to-play guidelines.
COMPETE CMR is the first study that the group is aware of to use an appropriate athletic control group to assess athletes after COVID-19.
"Myocarditis among recovering COVID-19 athletes is less common than previously reported," said Clark. "We also want to highlight that the comparison to a healthy athletic control group without COVID is critically important to show that many changes on a cardiac MRI are related to athleticism and not COVID-19. However, despite the lower incidence of myocarditis than expected, cardiac MRI remains a very useful tool for evaluating competitive athletes prior to a return to sports."
The paper will be published in the February edition of Circulation.
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