Cardiac abnormalities in a young athlete with severe pectus excavatum: a case report of a diagnostic loop between anatomical distortion and cardiomyopathy
Massimo Mapelli, Filippo Maria Rubbo, Gian Luca Ragazzoni, Sara Moscatelli, Paolo Certini, Edoardo Conte, Gianluca Pontone, Piergiuseppe Agostoni · 2026
Read Cardiac abnormalities in a young athlete with severe pectus excavatum: a case report of a diagnostic loop between anatomical distortion and cardiomyopathy by Massimo Mapelli, Filippo Maria Rubbo, Gian Luca Ragazzoni, Sara Moscatelli, Paolo Certini, Edoardo Conte, Gianluca Pontone, Piergiuseppe Agostoni (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-13220328.txt.
Description
Mapelli and seven co-authors report heart findings in a young athlete with a sunken chest, in work from twenty twenty-six. Pectus excavatum is the most common chest wall deformity from birth. It can shift the heart and mildly impair function, and may mask or mimic heart muscle disease.
Their patient was an asymptomatic male athlete aged twenty-four with severe deformity. He had frequent early heartbeats of a single shape. The case traces a diagnostic loop: were the heart changes due to chest shape pressure, or to true cardiomyopathy? Careful distinction matters before clearing an athlete for sport.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Massimo Mapelli, Filippo Maria Rubbo, Gian Luca Ragazzoni, Sara Moscatelli, Paolo Certini, Edoardo Conte, Gianluca Pontone, Piergiuseppe Agostoni |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 29 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |