Benjamin Braunecker1, Jenna Groh2, Charles Adler1, Michael Alosco2, David Dodick3, Yorghos Tripodis2, Laura Balcer4, Charles Bernick5, Sarah Banks6, William Barr4, Jennifer Wethe1, Joseph Palmisano2, Brett Martin2, Kaitlin Hartlage2, Robert Cantu2, Yonas Geda7, Douglas Katz8, Jesse Mez2, Jeffrey Cummings9, Martha Shenton10, Eric Reiman11, Robert Stern12
1Mayo Clinic Arizona, 2Boston University, 3Atria Institute, 4NYU Grossman School of Medicine, 5Cleveland Clinic, 6UCSD, 7Barrow Neurological Institute, 8Boston Medical Center, 9UNLV, 10Brigham and Women's Hospital, 11Banner Alzheimer's Institute, 12Boston University School of Medicine
Objective:
The objective of this study was to determine whether hyposmia is present in traumatic encephalopathy syndrome.
Background:
Former American football players are at risk for developing traumatic encephalopathy syndrome (TES), the clinical disorder associated with neuropathologically diagnosed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).
Design/Methods:
This cross-sectional study included 119 former professional American football players, 60 former college football players, and 58 same age asymptomatic unexposed men from the DIAGNOSE CTE Research Project. All subjects included in the analysis had completed the Brief Smell Identification Test (B-SIT). Traumatic encephalopathy syndrome and the level of CTE certainty were diagnosed using the 2021 NINDS consensus diagnostic criteria. TES is categorized antemortem by provisional levels of increasing CTE certainty: Suggestive, Possible, and Probable.
Results:
Former players who had traumatic encephalopathy syndrome and Probable CTE had lower B-SIT scores than those with TES and Suggestive CTE (mean (SD) = 9.5 (2.3) vs. 10.7 (1.1), p = 0.01). Hyposmia was more likely in the former players with TES who were either CTE Possible or Probable (n (%) = 11 (13.6%)) than in those who did not have TES or had TES but were less likely to have CTE, CTE Suggestive (4 (4%), p = 0.03). There was no difference in B-SIT scores between the former players and unexposed men nor overall between the football players with and without TES.
Conclusions:
We conclude that lower B-SIT scores may be a clinical biomarker for underlying CTE in former American football players.
Disclaimer: Abstracts were not reviewed by Neurology® and do not reflect the views of Neurology® editors or staff.