HeartBytes is a national youth cardiac registry of seemingly healthy kids. It was developed and funded by Simon’s Heart to fill the void of cardiac data on children. The data and images are crowdsourced by heart screening organizations and made available to qualified researchers (free of charge).
The registry has received IRB approval from Jefferson University Hospital. Download the Data Dictionary to review our data subset. Digital ECG recordings are also available.
Here is a list of all published research projects to date:
The Importance of Family History in a Pre-Participation Screening Program
Prevalence of Hypertension among US High School Students
Left Ventricular Hypertrophy in a College Athlete: Physiological or Pathological?
Parameters Associated with Abnormal Cardiac Conditions in Adolescent Athletes
Trends in Athlete ECG Interpretation in a Large Youth Cardiovascular Screening Organization
Racial and Ethnic Trends in Athlete ECG Interpretation Utilizing International ECG Criteria
Prevalence and Significance of Isolated T-Wave Inversion in Young Athletes
Published manuscripts:
Accepted Abstracts:
Farhan S, Dikdan S, Johnson D, Shipon D. Swimming Exercise in Youth Athletes is Associated with Reduced Cardiovascular Risk Factors: An Analysis of the HeartBytes Dataset. Accepted for poster presentation at AHA Scientific Sessions 2023, Philadelphia, PA.
Qiu G, Riley J, Dikdan S, Johnson D, Shipon D. Relationship between Obesity and Youth Athletes’ Physical Activity and Exercise Related Symptoms. Abstract accepted for poster presentation at AHA Scientific Sessions November 2023, Philadelphia, PA.
Fox Ni, Fox No, Farrehi C, Dikdan S, Hajduczok A, Johnson D, Shipon D. (2023, November) Frequency of Abnormal Cardiac Screens: Analysis of a National Cardiac Youth Registry. American Heart Association Scientific Sessions 2023, Philadelphia PA.
If you are interested in gaining access to our data, please submit a research request.
Are you a screening group? Download the Android app.
HeartBytes was a collaborative effort. Pulse InfoFrame is the architect. INFINITT North America stores the images on its cloud-based platform. DataMed donated the ECG translation software. Amps LLC donated ECG conversion services.
The Victor Thay Family and Fred and Diane Smith generously donated funding to underwrite the licensing fees for screening organizations.
Simon’s Heart has funded independent research projects as well. Those publications can be found in the links below.
Electrocardiographic Screening in National Collegiate Athletic Association Athletes