Towards a Multidisciplinary Approach of ECG Screening in Children and Adolescents: A Scoping Review (2005-2025).

Abstract

<h4>Background</h4>The reported data on ECG screening are focused on the last two decades. The objectives of this review were bifold: (i) to identify, within a timespan of twenty years, the most recent literature data on cardiac screening in children and adolescents and (ii) to provide data on the procedures used.<h4>Methods</h4>Queries were conducted using PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases for the time window of 2005-2025. The mesh terms used were "ECG", "Universal Screening", "Cardiac Pathologies", "Heart Rate", and "Sports Pre-participation Evaluation". Only research articles and review papers were included. The standard English language filter was used. Successively, only research articles were selected.<h4>Results</h4>Data from 14 papers were considered, reflecting the lack of information about subjects <16 years of age.<h4>Conclusions</h4>The information on objective ECG screening measures is quite scarce, and it is an urgent need to introduce a multidisciplinary approach to differentiate between ECG physiological changes due to growth and ECG pathological changes due to early pathology.