Urgent need for blood-based biomarkers to diagnosis concussion

New Rochelle, NY, September 30, 2020—There is an urgent need for objective markers for diagnosing concussion, or mild traumatic brain injury. The status of blood-based biomarker development and point-of-care testing are examined in a new Expert Panel Discussion published alongside the peer-reviewed Journal of Neurotrauma. Click here to read the Roundtable now.

A blood-based biomarker can overcome the limitations of current verbal tests for concussion. Specific biomarkers in the blood can also help detect brain trauma masked by other injuries or symptoms.

“These blood biomarkers go a step further in the assessment and characterization of brain injury. Even when there is not a critical need because it is clearly evident that this patient has a brain injury of some level, deeper enrichment and characterization of the injury by virtue of these biomarkers adds enormous value over and above our current clinical methods,” says panelist Michael McCrea, PhD, the Medical College of Wisconsin. 

“The accurate and rapid field diagnosis of a concussion is key to assuring that athletes and Service members are not put at risk for a second injury before recovery from the first. This roundtable provides the insight of five of the most experienced traumatic brain injury clinician investigators regarding the role of peripheral protein biomarkers for the objective diagnosis of TBI, and exciting new developments in point-of-care assay technology,” says Moderator Donald W. Marion, MD, MSc, Neurosurgery Consultant, The Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center/GDIT.

The expert panel was comprised of Jeffrey Bazarian, MD, University of Rochester; Jessica Gill, RN, PhD, National Institutes of Health; Geoffrey Manley, MD, PhD, University of California at San Francisco; Michael McCrea, PhD, the Medical College of Wisconsin; and Ava Puccio, RN, PhD, University of Pittsburgh.

The Expert Panel Discussion was produced with support from Abbott.