Cardiac Structure and Function in Elite Para-Cyclists with Spinal Cord Injury.

Purpose: We sought to explore the association between spinal cord injury (SCI) level on cardiac structure and function observed in elite para-cyclists. Methods: Cross-sectional echocardiographic data from 44 elite SCI hand-cyclists (39.8 +/- 9 years, 68% male/32% female) stratified by level of SCI (cervical, N = 9; T1-T5, N = 10; below T5, N = 25) and 19 non-SCI blind-visually impaired (BVI) tandem cyclists (32.4 +/- 7 years, 58% male / 42% female) were analyzed prior to the initiation of international competition. Results: Compared to non-SCI BVI cyclists, cervical SCI para-cyclists were observed with lower indexed left ventricular mass [99.6 +/- 12 versus 125 +/- 20 gm/m2; P = 0.01], posterior wall thickness [4.5 +/- 0.3 versus 5.8 +/- 0.7 mm/m2; P

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