Cardiovascular Imaging in the Evaluation of Athletes with Physiological Cardiac Remodelling and Cardiovascular Diseases

Dear Colleagues,

Cardiovascular imaging is a key part in evaluating the athlete's physiological adaptation to exercise. Furthermore, imaging allows to rule out and to characterize suspected congenital or acquired cardiovascular diseases. Basic and advanced cardiovascular imaging can resolve doubts in cases of cases falling in the grey zone between athlete’s heart and pathological conditions. Specifically, after an initial assessment with echocardiography, advanced imaging such as three-dimensional echocardiography, speckle tracking imaging, cardiac computed tomography, cardiac magnetic resonance, and nuclear techniques can improve the diagnostic accuracy and the risk stratification of cardiovascular diseases in athletes. The persistent advances and updates lead to a continuous evolution in the evaluation of the athlete's heart.

This Special Issue is aimed at interesting colleagues in the fields of sports cardiology and cardiovascular imaging. Original articles and high-quality reviews are welcome. Specifically, we particularly appreciate the contributions on the following topics:

- Multimodality imaging assessment in the differential diagnosis between athlete’s heart and cardiovascular diseases
- Advanced imaging assessment in the athlete’s heart
- Cardiovascular imaging approach in the female athlete’s heart
- The novelties in cardiovascular imaging in the evaluating of the athlete with cardiovascular diseases
- Cardiac multimodality imaging in risk assessment for arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in athletes 
- The role of cardiovascular imaging in exercise prescription 
- Risk stratification with cardiovascular imaging in young athletes with cardiovascular diseases
- Evaluation of the paediatric athlete's heart
- Multimodality imaging in congenital heart diseases, in cardiomyopathies, in heart valve diseases
- Role of imaging in the evaluation of athletes after COVID-19 infection

Assoc. Prof. Elena Cavarretta, Dr. Annachiara Pingitore and Dr. Francesco Perone

Guest Editors

Manuscripts should be submitted via our online editorial system at https://imr.propub.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to start your submission. Manuscripts can be submitted now or up until the deadline. All papers will go through peer-review process. Accepted papers will be published in the journal (as soon as accepted) and meanwhile listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, reviews as well as short communications are preferred. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office to announce on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts will be thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. Please visit the Instruction for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) in this open access journal is 2200 USD. Submitted manuscripts should be well formatted in good English.