While still experimental, the findings indicate the potential to perhaps one day be able to make CTE diagnoses in live subjects.

"This will require further studies including confirming in people who have had an abnormal PET scan that their autopsy shows abnormal tau accumulation in the same locations. If that were the case then a number of important things could be done," said Adler. "We could make the diagnosis of CTE in people suffering symptoms, or if the scans could detect CTE even before people have symptoms then there could be clinical trials of treatments that might slow or prevent them from developing symptoms. Also, the scans might serve as a marker of CTE disease progression and could be used in the trials to determine if treatments were slowing or stopping the CTE from worsening, adn if the PET scans do correlate with the autopsy findings of CTE, then we could use the PET scans and a diagnostic test which would allow us to validate other biomarkers being studies."

The authors, with support from the National Institute of Health, plan to address the matter more thoroughly in a longitudinal study called the DIAGNOSE CTE Research Project, in which they will assess former NFL players, former college football players and people with no history of contact sports. The findings of this study are expected in early 2020.

Parties involved in the current study came from BUSM, Banner Alzheimer's Institute, Mayo Clinic Arizona, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Avid Radiopharmaceuticals.

The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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