RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Association of Position Played and Career Duration and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy at Autopsy in Elite Football and Hockey Players
JF Neurology
JO Neurology
FD Lippincott Williams & Wilkins
SP e1835
OP e1843
DO 10.1212/WNL.0000000000011668
VO 96
IS 14
A1 Schwab, Nicole
A1 Wennberg, Richard
A1 Grenier, Karl
A1 Tartaglia, Carmela
A1 Tator, Charles
A1 Hazrati, Lili-Naz
YR 2021
UL http://n.neurology.org/content/96/14/e1835.abstract
AB Objective To determine whether an association exists between career duration or position played and the presence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) at autopsy in a series of elite football and hockey players.Methods This retrospective cohort study analyzed postmortem brains of 35 former football or hockey players (29 professional, 6 university varsity/major junior), with the presence of CTE at autopsy as the primary outcome. Position played (highest level), age at retirement (indicator of lifetime exposure to sport), and hockey fighting/penalization histories (surrogate marker for role/style of play) were collected. A blinded neuropathologic evaluation of each participant was performed, providing an assessment for neurodegenerative diseases including CTE, based on the 2015 National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke/National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineeringconsensus paper.Results In total, 17 of 35 former players (48.6%) showed pathologic evidence of CTE. There was no correlation found between position played and CTE presence, nor between hockey fighting/penalization histories and CTE, in either the football or hockey groups (p > 0.75, Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon). Similarly, there was no association between age at retirement and CTE presence (p > 0.5, Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon). In 24 of 35 cases (68.6%), other neuropathologies were present, 13 of 24 (54.2%) of which were coexistent with CTE.Conclusion In this cohort of 35 former collision sports athletes, no significant associations were found between career duration, position or role played, and CTE presence at autopsy. Although limited by the small and nonrepresentative sample studied, these findings suggest that nonsport factors may be important to understand differing susceptibilities among athletes to CTE.AD=Alzheimer disease; ARTAG=aging-related tau astrogliopathy; CTE=chronic traumatic encephalopathy; NFL=National Football League; NHL=National Hockey League; p-tau=phospho-tau; TBI=traumatic brain injury; TDP-43=TAR DNA-binding protein 43