Radio Brisvaani
A brain disease linked with repetitive head trauma in the NFL has been identified for the first time in the brains of two former NRL players.
The landmark and potentially game-changing findings have been uncovered by researchers and clinicians from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, NSW Health Pathology and the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre.
Evidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, was found in the two brains of deceased NRL players, both of whom played more than 150 first-grade games.
The findings related to rugby league have been published today in the international neuropathology journal Acta Neuropathologica Communications.
“The changes in the two brains were distinctive, definitive, and met consensus diagnostic criteria for CTE,” said lead author Clinical Associate Professor Michael Buckland, head of the RPA Neuropathology Department and head of the Molecular Neuropathology Program at the Brain and Mind Centre.
I have looked at about 1000 brains over the last 10 years, and I have not seen this sort of pathology in any other case before.
“The fact that we have now seen these changes in former rugby league players indicates that they, and likely other Australian collision sports players, are not immune to CTE, a disease that has gained such high profile in the United States.”
The identity of both players is unknown. The journal claims that they are the two first reported cases of CTE in rugby league in the world and only the second and third cases of CTE ever reported in Australian sport.
The journal states that Case 1 had a successful career after retirement, and had been working up until his death.
He did not abuse alcohol, or other drugs.
Family members reported increasing reliance on aide-mémoires for daily activities in the years prior to his death, and recent difficulties remembering details of a significant life event.
Case Two had some issues during his transition to a post-playing career, but was productively employed until his death.
CTE was first discovered in the US by Doctor Bennet Omalu during an autopsy of former Pittsburgh Steelers centre Mike Webster in 2002.
The diagnosis — and the strong denials from the NFL that the disease was connected to the sport — were chronicled in the 2015 movie “Concussion.”
Dr Christopher Nowinski, who has worked with Doctor Omalu in the US and is the head of the Concussion Legacy Foundation in Boston, said: “We commend the authors for this groundbreaking discovery.
We hope the first proof of CTE in rugby league inspires the Australian scientific community to mobilise in the fight against CTE, and advances the conversation on reforms to sport that can prevent this disease.”
The NRL have spent the past five years consistently reviewing, tightening and reassessing their concussion protocols.
