Simon Wernhart, Tom Kastner, Martin Halle, Stephan Mueller, Veronika Schmid, Cihan Akbulut, Cordula M Wolf, Christian Meierhofer, Teresa Trenkwalder, Isabel Diebold, Christopher Herzog, Richard Brill, Mark J Haykowsky, Stephen Foulkes, Bernd Wolfarth, Eimo Martens, Dominik S Westphal
{"title":"Cardiac involvement in female elite athletes with carrier status of Duchenne muscular dystrophy.","authors":"Simon Wernhart, Tom Kastner, Martin Halle, Stephan Mueller, Veronika Schmid, Cihan Akbulut, Cordula M Wolf, Christian Meierhofer, Teresa Trenkwalder, Isabel Diebold, Christopher Herzog, Richard Brill, Mark J Haykowsky, Stephen Foulkes, Bernd Wolfarth, Eimo Martens, Dominik S Westphal","doi":"10.3389/fcvm.2025.1606994","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a muscle-wasting, progressive, X-linked inherited disease in young male individuals, who-aside from peripheral muscular impairment-may also suffer from severe cardiac complications. In women who are muscular dystrophy carriers (MDCs), muscular symptoms and cardiac complications are less severe or even absent. While male individuals with muscular dystrophy are not usually able to perform strenuous exercise, women who are MDCs can exercise at mild, or even high, intensity. However, the impact of participating in elite sports, particularly endurance sports with high cardiopulmonary exercise strain, on female athletes who are MDCs is uncertain. Herein, we describe two rare cases of female elite athletes who are MDCs who participated in endurance sports. We describe their clinical presentation, kinetics of cardiac biomarkers and peripheral muscle enzymes during acute exercise, and cardiac manifestations in the context of sports eligibility, including an interdisciplinary shared decision-making approach to whether to continue participating in sports. This approach focuses on pathophysiology and genetics in dystrophinopathies, with a particular focus on genetic carrier status. While the primary concern is risk stratification for sudden cardiac death and its prevention, the potential risk of early onset of myocardial dysfunction or even heart failure also needs to be considered in MDCs. To optimize exercise recommendations, these complex and rare cases of athletes require an interdisciplinary approach, including experts in sports cardiology, sports medicine, radiology, and genetics, and should be included in a long-term international sports cardiology registry.</p>","PeriodicalId":12414,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine","volume":"12 ","pages":"1606994"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12278061/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fcvm.2025.1606994","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"CARDIAC & CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEMS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a muscle-wasting, progressive, X-linked inherited disease in young male individuals, who-aside from peripheral muscular impairment-may also suffer from severe cardiac complications. In women who are muscular dystrophy carriers (MDCs), muscular symptoms and cardiac complications are less severe or even absent. While male individuals with muscular dystrophy are not usually able to perform strenuous exercise, women who are MDCs can exercise at mild, or even high, intensity. However, the impact of participating in elite sports, particularly endurance sports with high cardiopulmonary exercise strain, on female athletes who are MDCs is uncertain. Herein, we describe two rare cases of female elite athletes who are MDCs who participated in endurance sports. We describe their clinical presentation, kinetics of cardiac biomarkers and peripheral muscle enzymes during acute exercise, and cardiac manifestations in the context of sports eligibility, including an interdisciplinary shared decision-making approach to whether to continue participating in sports. This approach focuses on pathophysiology and genetics in dystrophinopathies, with a particular focus on genetic carrier status. While the primary concern is risk stratification for sudden cardiac death and its prevention, the potential risk of early onset of myocardial dysfunction or even heart failure also needs to be considered in MDCs. To optimize exercise recommendations, these complex and rare cases of athletes require an interdisciplinary approach, including experts in sports cardiology, sports medicine, radiology, and genetics, and should be included in a long-term international sports cardiology registry.
期刊介绍:
Frontiers? Which frontiers? Where exactly are the frontiers of cardiovascular medicine? And who should be defining these frontiers?
At Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine we believe it is worth being curious to foresee and explore beyond the current frontiers. In other words, we would like, through the articles published by our community journal Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine, to anticipate the future of cardiovascular medicine, and thus better prevent cardiovascular disorders and improve therapeutic options and outcomes of our patients.