Scientists discover blood biomarker that opens door to diagnosing CTE in living patients | Sport

Scientists have taken a step closer to diagnosing chronic degenerative traumatic brain encephalopathy in living people, after a study discovered a blood biomarker that identifies an advanced form of the disease.

As it stands, CTE, which is caused by repeated trauma to the head and is particularly prevalent in collision and contact sports such as American football, rugby and soccer, can only be diagnosed after death by examining brain tissue.

However, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have now identified a protein fragment in the blood – eMTBR-tau243 – that is elevated not only in Alzheimer’s disease, but also in other brain diseases that share the same type of toxic protein accumulation, including CTE.

“We potentially open a new door to diagnosing and treating CTE in living patients,” said Kanta Horie, co-senior author of the study in the medical journal JAMA Neurology.

When researchers analyzed the blood of 11 people who had been confirmed to have CTE at autopsy, they found that eMTBR-tau243 levels were higher than in healthy people and increased with the severity of the brain disease.

Yet even though the test could distinguish people with advanced CTE from healthy people with high accuracy, it could not reliably identify early-stage CTE.

The test has not yet been validated to diagnose CTE. However, scientists say that if large studies confirm their results, clinicians could use such a blood test to monitor people at risk for CTE and enable trials of drugs that could improve this disease.

“Our study shows that a biomarker for Alzheimer’s disease can be applied to other tauopathies, including CTE,” said neuroscientist Chihiro Sato, co-author of the study with Horie. “It’s not going to be a stand-alone biomarker. But if someone has a history of repeated head trauma and their Alzheimer’s test is negative and this biomarker shows up, it could be CTE.”

CTE continues to be a major concern in science and sports. In a recent study of nearly 400 NFL players whose brains were donated for examination after death, 93.5% showed signs of CTE.

More than 350 NFL players have been diagnosed with CTE after death, including Mike Webster, a Hall of Fame center; Junior Seau, whose 20-year career included two Super Bowl appearances, and Frank Gifford, former MVP and prominent broadcaster.

Legal proceedings continue against a number of living former rugby union and rugby league players who have been diagnosed with traumatic encephalopathy syndrome (TES), including England World Cup winner Steve Thompson. Boxer Ricky Hatton was also diagnosed with mild CTE following his death.

Earlier this year, the Professional Footballers’ Association recommended that professionals head the ball no more than 10 times a week during training, and children under 12 not at all, as part of a CTE prevention protocol.