Publication date: Jun 13, 2025
The aims of this study were to describe the etiology of acute respiratory infections (ARinf) in athletic individuals, and to identify differences in the clinical presentation, evidence of possible multi-organ involvement, and illness classification between common pathogen groups. One-hundred-and-sixteen cases of confirmed ARinf in athletic individuals were evaluated ≤5 days of the onset of an ARinf. Nasopharyngeal swab multiplex PCR testing was performed to identify a causative pathogen. Symptomatology, clinical examination findings, results of selected blood tests, and the clinical syndrome and illness severity classifications were compared between four common pathogen groups. The etiologies of ARinf in this cohort were: rhinovirus = 34(29%), influenza = 17(15%), SARS-CoV-2 = 15(13%), common coronavirus = 13(11%), ‘unidentified’ = 16(14%), ‘dual pathogen’ = 9(8%), and ‘other’ = 12(10%). Clinical presentation differed among the four common pathogen groups as follows: Influenza had more total symptoms, lower respiratory & regional symptoms, and systemic & non-respiratory symptoms than rhinovirus (p ≤ 0. 002) and common coronavirus (p
| Concepts | Keywords |
|---|---|
| Pcr | Athletes |
| Rhinovirus | Respiratory infections |
| Sportsmed | respiratory viruses |
| Viral | Return-to-sport |
Semantics
| Type | Source | Name |
|---|---|---|
| disease | MESH | respiratory infections |
| disease | MESH | etiology |
| disease | IDO | pathogen |
| disease | IDO | blood |
| disease | MESH | syndrome |
| disease | MESH | Influenza |