Dr. Hadas the director of the Israeli Center for Sports Cardiology
What is sports cardiology?
In 490 CE, a message was sent from Marathon to Athens announcing the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon. The messenger, Pheidippides was his name, arrived in Athens, delivered the message of victory and collapsed… This was probably the first documented event of sudden cardiac death in an athlete.
Sudden death in athletes is not a very common event. Today, there are an estimated 1-2 cases per 1,00,000 young athletes a year (EHRA 2017).
Saying that, it is a seminal event because it occurs in people who represent the healthiest of human abilities. These events are often observed by tens of thousands of people (and sometimes more). Many cases of deaths in athletes from cardiac causes are documented around the world.
The goal in sports cardiology is to find the athletes at risk and to reduce the number of cases of death and morbidity in athletes.
Diagnosis is performed by ECG, stress test and echocardiography, and if necessary, by Holter monitor, cardiac MRI and transesophageal electrophysiologic study (TEEPS).
Dr. Dan Hadas is a sports cardiologist, graduate of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) in sports cardiology, graduate of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in sports cardiology, the first specialist in Israel with cross-specialization in both pediatric cardiology and sports cardiology. He specialized in arrythmias and sports cardiology at Azienda Ospedaliera di Padova (University of Padua), the world's leading sports cardiology center in Padua, Italy, and is a member of the European Association of Preventive Cardiology (EAPC).