PRESS RELEASE

American Medical Society for Sports Medicine
For Immediate Release Apr 22, 2012


AMSSM Focuses on Prevention of Sudden Cardiac Death in Sport

ATLANTA, Ga. – Euan A. Ashley, MRCP, DPhil will be presenting an “Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy vs. Athlete’s Heart: Understanding the Physiologic Limits of Exercise” at the 21st American Medical Society for Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA on Sunday, April 22, 2012. Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is the most common cause of sudden cardiac death in athletes, but can be difficult to distinguish from normal cardiac changes resulting from intense training. Properly identifying patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy will allow sports medicine physicians to prevent sudden cardiac death in these at-risk athletes.

“When athletes train hard, the heart adapts just like any other muscle. Unfortunately a small number of people have heart muscle disease that can look like the heart of a trained athlete,” said Dr. Ashley. “In this lecture, I’ll discuss how we can tell the difference. We can learn a lot about how the heart adapts to disease by studying how it adapts to exercise.”

The conference features lectures and research addressing the most challenging topics in sports medicine today including prevention of sudden death, cardiovascular issues in athletes, concussion, biologic therapies, and other controversies facing the field of sports medicine.

More than 1,200 sports medicine physicians from across the United States and 12 countries around the world will attend the meeting.

Dr. Ashley is Assistant Professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Stanford University, California, Director of the Stanford Cardiopulmonary Testing laboratory, and Director of the Stanford Center for Inherited Cardiovascular Disease.

Born and raised in Scotland, Dr. Ashley graduated with 1st class Honors in Exercise Physiology and Medicine from the University of Glasgow. After completing residency at the University of Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, he joined the PhD program in Molecular Cardiology. His work attracted Young Investigator awards from the UK Medical Research Society, the European Society of Cardiology and the American Heart Association. In 2002, he moved to California continuing his collaboration with Dr. Victor Froelicher. He joined the faculty of Stanford in 2006 setting up the hypertrophic cardiomyopathy program. Dr. Ashley has a longstanding interest in the hearts of athletes and the diseases that can lead to their sudden death. He has published extensively on exercise testing and ECG screening. In addition, he was awarded an NIH Director’s New Innovator award to study genetic cardiomyopathy. In 2010, he led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a human genome. Dr. Ashley is a member of the leadership group of the American Heart Association’s Council on Functional Genomics, Chair of the American Heart Association’s writing group on genetic testing and a member of the American Heart Association’s writing group on ECG screening in young people.

The AMSSM is a multi-disciplinary organization of sports medicine physicians whose members are dedicated to education, research, advocacy, and the care of athletes of all ages. Founded in 1991, the AMSSM is now comprised of more than 2,000 sports medicine physicians whose goal is to provide a link between the rapidly expanding core of knowledge related to sports medicine and its application to patients in a clinical setting.

NOTE: For more information, please contact the AMSSM, 4000 W. 114th St., Suite 100, Leawood, KS 66211, (913) 327-1415.

© The American Medical Society for Sports Medicine
4000 W. 114th Street, Suite 100
Leawood, KS 66211
Phone: 913.327.1415


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