{"id":834573,"date":"2025-03-16T19:11:48","date_gmt":"2025-03-17T00:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/16\/come-fly-with-me-hidden-cvd-risks-in-airline-pilots\/"},"modified":"2025-03-16T19:11:48","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T00:11:48","slug":"come-fly-with-me-hidden-cvd-risks-in-airline-pilots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/16\/come-fly-with-me-hidden-cvd-risks-in-airline-pilots\/","title":{"rendered":"Come Fly With Me: Hidden CVD Risks in Airline Pilots?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Business News <\/p>\n<div check-ads-type=\"true\">\n<p><strong>Edited By:\u00a0<\/strong>Manasi Talwadekar\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>Business News TOPLINE:<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/emedicine.medscape.com\/article\/2500031-overview\">Cardiovascular risk factors<\/a> and comorbidities are prevalent among asymptomatic aircraft pilots referred for medical screening, but these individuals generally represent a healthy population with good functional capacity. However, the prevalence of cardiac structural findings, such as aortic dilation, warrants increased attention.<\/p>\n<h2>Business News METHODOLOGY:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Stringent regulatory medical screenings are mandated for aircraft pilots, as sudden incapacitation poses a significant public health risk.<\/li>\n<li>Researchers conducted a retrospective analysis of 212 aircraft pilots (76% commercial) with no symptoms of cardiovascular disease (mean age, 58.5 years; 91.5% men) who were referred for health screenings, including cardiopulmonary stress tests (n = 118), in the United States between January 1991 and September 2023.<\/li>\n<li>Follow-up diagnostic tests based on results of screening involved transthoracic echocardiograms (n = 57), transesophageal echocardiograms (n = 8), CT angiograms (n = 8), and left heart catheterizations (n = 6).<\/li>\n<li>Using transthoracic <a href=\"https:\/\/emedicine.medscape.com\/article\/1820912-overview\">echocardiography<\/a> (TTE), significant valvular disease was defined as stenosis, regurgitation, or prolapse of moderate severity or greater, with any mild disease also being recorded.<\/li>\n<li>Composite endpoint outcomes involving major adverse cardiac events included <a href=\"https:\/\/emedicine.medscape.com\/article\/155919-overview\">myocardial infarction<\/a>, cerebrovascular accidents, diagnosis of arrhythmia or <a href=\"https:\/\/emedicine.medscape.com\/article\/354666-overview\">congestive heart failure<\/a>, hospitalization, and death.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Business News TAKEAWAY:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The TTEs identified 14 pilots with left ventricular hypertrophy, 15 with right ventricular abnormalities, and 12 with mostly mild valvular heart disease. Significant valvular disease was present in 2.4% of these cases.<\/li>\n<li>Eight pilots had follow-up transesophageal echocardiograms, which revealed nine dilated ascending aortas (all at least 40 mm; mean diameter, 42.7 mm) in 15.8% of the TTEs, with a mean diameter of 42.7 mm. Among the four TTEs with diastolic dysfunction, three were classified as grade I and one as grade III.<\/li>\n<li>The 118 stress tests revealed a mean functional aerobic capacity of 109%, reaching 12 metabolic equivalents. One CT coronary angiogram showed more than 50% stenosis in at least one coronary vessel.<\/li>\n<li>Over an average of 6.6 years of follow-up, the overall rates of major cardiac events remained low. By 5 years post-screening, 89.6% of pilots were free from cardiac-related events, and after 20 years, this number was 77.9%.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Business News IN PRACTICE:<\/h2>\n<p>&#8220;Pilots referred for medical screening represent a healthy population demonstrating prevalence of multiple comorbidities including aortic dilatation and favourable long-term freedom from major cardiac events based on survival analysis and cardiovascular fitness,&#8221; the authors of the study write.<\/p>\n<h2>Business News SOURCE:<\/h2>\n<p>Th study, led by Wiaam Y. Elkhatib, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, was <a href=\"https:\/\/heart.bmj.com\/content\/early\/2025\/03\/04\/heartjnl-2024-325243.info\">published online<\/a> March 4 in the BMJ journal <em>Heart<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2>Business News LIMITATIONS:<\/h2>\n<p>This study had a retrospective design and relied on medical record reviews. Clinical morbidity might have been overestimated due to the focus on an academic hospital system. Referral bias was possible as pilots are a self-selected group subject to standardized health screenings.<\/p>\n<h2>Business News DISCLOSURES:<\/h2>\n<p>This study received internal funding from a Mayo Clinic Cardiovascular Disease departmental research grant. The authors reported no relevant financial relationships.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.medscape.com\/viewarticle\/come-fly-me-hidden-cvd-risks-airline-pilots-2025a100069o\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><br \/>\n Joan Center<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Edited By:\u00a0Manasi Talwadekar\u00a0 TOPLINE: Cardiovascular risk factors and comorbidities are prevalent among asymptomatic aircraft pilots referred for medical screening, but these individuals generally represent a healthy population with good functional capacity. However, the prevalence of cardiac structural findings, such as aortic dilation, warrants increased attention. METHODOLOGY: Stringent regulatory medical screenings are mandated for aircraft pilots<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":834574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35067,22895,27901],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-834573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-heath","8":"category-hidden","9":"category-risks"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=834573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/834573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=834573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=834573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=834573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}