Comparative Echocardiographic Study of Junior and Senior Basketball Players

Abstract

The echocardiographic data on 14 junior and 15 senior players in a first-division basketball club were compared. No difference was found between the senior and junior players as regards the thickness of the interventricular septum (11.47 vs 11.21 mm) or the thickness of the posterior wall of the left ventricle (9.8 vs 9.86 mm). The adults displayed a larger left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (56.8 vs 53.6 mm, P < 0.05), end-diastolic volume (194 vs 164 ml, P < 0.05), stroke volume (142 vs 116 ml, P < 0.05), right ventricular diameter (27.9 vs 23.2, P < 0.01), aortic root diameter (35.0 vs 32.0, P < 0.05), and left atrial diameter (42.7 vs 37.2, P < 0.01). However, among these, only the stroke volume and right ventricular diameter remained significantly different after normalization to body surface area. A significant difference could not be demonstrated in the linear ejection fraction, the ejection fraction, or the fractionated interventricular septum and posterior wall thicknesses. The examinations indicated that left ventricular hypertrophy had fully developed by the age of 18 years in the basketball players and that there was no further enhancement in adults. However, the left ventricular, right ventricular, and left atrial volume were larger in the adults than in the junior players.

Key words

sport and left ventricle function - echocardiogram of junior and senior basketball players - physiologic left ventricle hypertrophy