Professor Jon Drezner emphasises the need for careful planning and practice of emergency protocols in the sports medicine setting. He also shares the new criteria for ECG screening - these lead to a much lower false positive rate than was previously reported. He makes a compelling case to include a resting 12-lead ECG in the periodic health examination of athletes.

In this podcast he previews the international collaboration to improve the criteria for interpreting ECGs in athletes. These ‘Seattle criteria’ will be shared for free world-wide via BMJ Learning though sponsorship by numerous stakeholders including FIFA, AMSSM, PACES and ESC.

0.47 Has there been an increase in the rate of sudden cardiac death in sportspeople aged over 35 years?
1.42 What can clinicians do to minimize the risk of sudden cardiac death?
5.14 Screening and periodic health examination
8.56 Efforts to increase the accuracy of ECG interpretation - the Seattle meeting
21.04 AMSSM - a great member society for primary care physicians
23.33 Summary

See also:
BJSM blog: ECG Summit in Seattle: Successes and Next Steps
You can read how a two page tool with criteria for assisting interpreting ECGs in athletes led to improved accuracy in ECG reading by sports medicine attendings, primary care attending and primary care residents
Jon’s previous BJSM podcast: Preventing sudden cardiac death with Jon Drezner
The two page tool
Recommendations for interpretation of 12-lead electrocardiogram in the athlete
Detailed criteria for the interpretation of the electrocardiogram in young athletes

Jon Drezner, BJSM’s senior associate editor for sports cardiology, discusses prevention of sudden cardiac death. Jon discusses where ECG fits into screening, training sport physicians to confidently interpret ECGs, and the utility of automated external defibrillators.

Jon is also president-elect of the American Medical Society of Sports Medicine, and he gives us a preview of the 2012 annual meeting in Atlanta (April 21-25).

To listen to Jon Drezner’s opening keynote presentation at the IOC’s 3^rd World Congress on Prevention of Injury and Illness in Sport (a joint lecture with Professor Antonio Pellucia), follow this link and see the ‘Online Presentations’ tab on the top right of the screen.