Cuspidi C, et al. - Via this meta-analysis, researchers analyzed evidence from echocardiographic studies that offered volumetric and strain analysis of left atrial (LA) phasic function to determine LA volume, function and strain in elite athletes. They used focused and high sensitive search strategies to identify the relevant English-language articles published up to February 2018 in OVID-MEDLINE, PubMed and Cochrane CENTRAL databases. Overall, 9 studies involving 403 athletes and 314 active (but not trained) healthy controls were analyzed. Compared to untrained controls, elite athletes exhibited higher LA volume and impaired LA reservoir and contractile functions during active training. These changes could be associated with higher risk of arrhythmias, especially atrial fibrillation, seen among middle/old aged athletes.