Preliminary clinical diagnostic criteria for chronic traumatic encephalopathy: A case report and literature review

The association between chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and repetitive head injury (RHI), acquired through participation in contact sports, has captured the attention of researchers and the general public. Early CTE research in American football players raised questions regarding the risk of American football participation on long-term neurological morbidity. A host of cognitive and neuropsychiatric symptoms appear to manifest from CTE. Many of these symptoms are non-specific and overlap with other neurodegenerative diseases. At present, CTE is only definitively diagnosed with postmortem neuropathological examination. Although the pathognomonic signature of CTE has been well-studied, clinical criteria for CTE diagnosis in a living person remains in the early stages. Identifying disease-specific features and developing in vivo biomarkers are current research priorities. Here, we present a case of young onset dementia in a former professional American football player. His exposure to RHI from contact sport participation is a salient dementia risk factor. The clinical and imaging findings in this case were consistent with a diagnosis of mixed dementia and probable CTE. Our findings highlight current clinical challenges of diagnosing CTE in a living person.