CTE Confirmed in Live Person for the 1st Time After Exam of Former NFL Player

Researchers announced in the scientific journal Neurosurgery last week that they had confirmed the ability to identify chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in living patients, per CNN.com's Nadia Kounang. 

According to John Keilman of the Chicago Tribune, four years ago the researchers discovered that "scans indicated the presence of tau, a protein that builds up over damaged neurological cells, in the brains of former NFL players," but the results still needed confirmation "since CTE can be definitively diagnosed only by examining brain tissue after a person’s death."

Now, Evanston's NorthShore University HealthSystem neurosurgeon Dr. Julian Bailes confirmed in the journal article that one of the former living players initially examined was found to be suffering from CTE following a postmortem examination. 

The former players had first been scanned four years ago, and per the report, more studies will be required to validate this initial finding from the deceased subject studied. But as Bailes noted, it could be an important first step to eventually identifying and treating the condition in living patients.

"If there’s ever a treatment developed, you can test the response to it," Bailes said. "If you can trust the scans, you can tell a football player he shouldn’t keep playing, or tell someone in the military he can’t get in the way of explosions."

Indeed, the findings will be followed closely by the NFL, as concussion and head trauma issues have become a major issue regarding player safety. A study by neuropathologist Dr. Ann McKee indicated in July that CTE was discovered in the brains of 110 of the 111 former NFL players examined. 

An NFL study found that there were 459 known concussions in the time period between the 2015 preseason and 2016 postseason, per Cindy Boren of the Washington Post, though Jeff Crandall—the director of the University of Virginia's Center for Applied Biomechanics NFL engineering committee chairmen—said that number was likely even higher in the past.

"Fifteen to 20 years ago, this was probably double," he said. "We can attribute some of this reduction to the rules changes implemented in the recent past."