Sudden cardiac death is a rare event that occurs in young individuals who are thought to be healthy.Young athletes at risk for sudden cardiac death invariably have an underlying cardiac condition. Because of the great time and expense involved in screening young athletes using state of the art methods and because of the low frequency of finding an athlete with an underlying cardiac condition, it has generally not been considered cost-effective to advocate wide-spread screening of young athletes prior to sports participation. However, families and individuals may wish to have their children screened for underlying cardiac conditions nonetheless. In response to community interest in the availability of this option, reduced cost screening for those interested is being provided by an experienced Pediatric Cardiologist.

Top athletic performance requires perfect cardiac and pulmonary function. Two of the most common limitations to athletic performance is under-conditioning (inadequate training) and unrecognized, untreated asthma. There are other cardiac and pulmonary problems that are less common that go unrecognized as well. All of these issues can be detected by cardiopulmonary athletic assessment.

About 1 in 5 young athletes have some form and degree of asthma and most of these athletes manifest worse asthma during exercise. Unrecognized asthma is the single most common cause of exertional chest pain, shortness of breath and dizziness in young people. Alternatively, these symptoms can also be caused by serious cardiac problems.