van Amerongen, Suzan;
Kamps, Suzie;
Kaijser, Kyra KM;
Pijnenburg, Yolande AL;
Scheltens, Philip;
Teunissen, Charlotte E;
Barkhof, Frederik;
... Vijverberg, Everard GB; + view all
(2023)
Severe CTE and TDP-43 pathology in a former professional soccer player with dementia: a clinicopathological case report and review of the literature.
Acta Neuropathologica Communications
, 11
, Article 77. 10.1186/s40478-023-01572-3.
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Abstract
In the last decades, numerous post-mortem case series have documented chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in former contact-sport athletes, though reports of CTE pathology in former soccer players are scarce. This study presents a clinicopathological case of a former professional soccer player with young-onset dementia. The patient experienced early onset progressive cognitive decline and developed dementia in his mid-50 s, after playing soccer for 12 years at a professional level. While the clinical picture mimicked Alzheimer's disease, amyloid PET imaging did not provide evidence of elevated beta-amyloid plaque density. After he died in his mid-60 s, brain autopsy showed severe phosphorylated tau (p-tau) abnormalities fulfilling the neuropathological criteria for high-stage CTE, as well as astrocytic and oligodendroglial tau pathology in terms of tufted astrocytes, thorn-shaped astrocytes, and coiled bodies. Additionally, there were TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43) positive cytoplasmic inclusions in the frontal lobe and hippocampus, and Amyloid Precursor Protein (APP) positivity in the axons of the white matter. A systematic review of the literature revealed only 13 other soccer players with postmortem diagnosis of CTE. Our report illustrates the complex clinicopathological correlation of CTE and the need for disease-specific biomarkers.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Severe CTE and TDP-43 pathology in a former professional soccer player with dementia: a clinicopathological case report and review of the literature |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s40478-023-01572-3 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s40478-023-01572-3 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
| Keywords: | Association football, Biomarkers, Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Neurodegeneration, Repetitive head impacts, Soccer, Tauopathy, Traumatic encephalopathy syndrome, Male, Humans, Soccer, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, Sports, Brain, Alzheimer Disease |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Brain Repair and Rehabilitation |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10170179 |
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