A recent study conducted by Francesco Sofi and his team of researchers at the Institute of Sports Medicine at the University of Florence, said that by including exercise ECG's among the people seeking to take part in competitive sports, people with cardiac abnormalities can be identified.

This would result in prevention of sudden cardiac deaths and save lives.  In the United States alone, a young competetive athlete dies every three days from an undetected cardiovascular disorder and in most of these cases the athletes appear healthy and have no previous signs of heart problems.

But American Heart Association is against the universal use of electrocardiography, because of the cost involved, low prevelance of the disease and a high false positive rate.

After analysing a data from more than 30,000 heart screenings during a five year period between 2002 and 2006, Sofi and his colleagues found that 1,459 people showed some form of cardiac problem during and exercise electrocardiogram and 348 people had abnormal results during their resting electrocardiogram. Out of these 159 people were found unfit to compete.

However, if the screening would have done only through the family background and physical examination, only six, out of the 159 people would have been identified.

The results are good enough to prove the point of introducing ECG in the screening programmes for all people taking part in competitive sports.

ECGs are highly recommended for all the athletes, especially who are middle aged or older, seeking participation in competitive sports.