An overview of the electrocardiographic monitoring devices in sports cardiology: Between present and future

AbstractBackgroundAthletes represent a mainly healthy population, which however could be considered at risk of major arrhythmic events, especially in case of undiagnosed cardiomyopathies. For this reason, the periodical sports medicine examination and the electrocardiography are essential tools in the cardiovascular screening, even though they do not always succeed in identifying rhythm disturbances, particularly when asymptomatic or rarely symptomatic.HypothesisProlonged cardiac monitoring often enables clinicians to stratify the arrhythmic risk and reach the diagnosis. The technological progress of the last decades has produced an always‐increasing number of heart rhythm monitoring devices, starting from the 24‐hour electrocardiogram Holter monitoring and ending with the wide world of wearable devices.MethodsIn the literature, the extreme utility of this equipment in the patients affected by cardiovascular diseases and in the general population is well established. On the contrary, athletes‐based randomized trials or large‐scale epidemiological studies targeting the frequency of cardiac symptoms and the use of cardiac monitoring are missing, while an ever‐growing number of case s