The DOI matches its Crossref record; 91 of the 94 references it cites were found in a registry or an index, and 3 are not checked yet.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in Contact Sports: A Systematic Review of All Reported Pathological Cases
Open accessAbstract
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a neurodegenerative disease associated with head trauma. Although initially believed to affect only boxers, the at-risk population has expanded to encompass a much wider demographic, including American football players, hockey players, wrestlers, and military veterans. This expansion has garnered considerable media attention and public concern for the potential neurodegenerative effects of head trauma. The main aim of this systematic review is to give a complete overview of the common findings and risk factors for CTE as well as the status quo regarding the incidence and prevalence of CTE. This systematic review was performed using PubMed and MEDLINE and includes all neuropathologically confirmed cases of CTE in the medical literature to date, from the first published case in 1954 to August 1, 2013 (n = 153). The demographics, including the primary source of mTBI (mild Traumatic Brain Injury), age and cause of death, ApoE genotype, and history of substance abuse, when listed, were obtained from each case report. The demographics of American football players found to have CTE are also presented separately in order to highlight the most prevalent group of CTE cases reported in recent years. These 153 case reports of CTE represent the largest collection to date. We found that a history of mTBI was the only risk factor consistently associated with CTE. In addition, we found no relationships between CTE and age of death or abnormal ApoE allele. Suicide and the presence of premorbid dementia was not strongly associated with CTE. We conclude that the incidence of CTE remains unknown due to the lack of large, longitudinal studies. Furthermore, the neuropathological and clinical findings related to CTE overlap with many common neurodegenerative diseases. Our review reveals significant limitations of the current CTE case reporting and questions the widespread existence of CTE in contact sports.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Figures
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Involvement in contact sports and a history of multiple concussions has been shown to cause long-term effects on brain health [27, 88, 95]”
From DNA repair deficiency and senescence in concussed professional athletes involved in contact sports (2019) · cites this paper as [95]
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Williams, J. B. W., & First, M. B. (2013) · Oxford University Press eBooks · doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.104 · Cited by 109,845
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Siegel, L. J., & Fletcher‐Janzen, E. (2008) · Wiley eBooks · doi:10.1002/9780470373699.speced0655 · Cited by 8,467
Association of apolipoprotein E allele ϵ4 with late‐onset familial and sporadic Alzheimer's disease
Saunders, A. M., Strittmatter, W. J., Schmechel, D., St. George-Hyslop, P. H., Pericak-Vance, M. A., Joo, S. H., Rosi, B. L., Gusella, J. F., Crapper-MacLachlan, D. R., Alberts, M. J., et al. (1993) · Neurology · doi:10.1212/wnl.43.8.1467 · Cited by 3,786
Weıntraub, S. (1990) · Archives of Neurology · doi:10.1001/archneur.1990.00530120075013 · Cited by 3,018
Hasin, D. S., Stinson, F. S., Ogburn, E., & Grant, B. F. (2007) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.64.7.830 · Cited by 2,908
McCrory, P. R., Meeuwisse, W. H., Aubry, M., Cantu, B., Dvořák, J., Echemendía, R. J., Engebretsen, L., Johnston, K., Kutcher, J. S., Raftery, M., et al. (2013) · British Journal of Sports Medicine · doi:10.1136/bjsports-2013-092313 · Cited by 2,669
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy in athletes: Progressive tauopathy after repetitive head injury
McKee, A. C., Cantu, R. C., Nowinski, C. J., Hedley-Whyte, E. T., Gavett, B. E., Budson, A. E., Santini, V. E., Lee, H.-S., Kubilus, C. A., & Stern, R. A. (2009) · Journal of Neuropathology & Experimental Neurology · doi:10.1097/nen.0b013e3181a9d503 · Cited by 2,295
McCrory, P. R., Meeuwisse, W. H., Aubry, M., Cantu, B., Dvořák, J., Echemendía, R. J., Engebretsen, L., Johnston, K., Kutcher, J., Raftery, M., et al. (2013) · Physical Therapy in Sport · doi:10.1016/j.ptsp.2013.03.002 · Cited by 2,141
The spectrum of disease in chronic traumatic encephalopathy
McKee, A. C., Stein, T. D., Nowinski, C. J., Stern, R. A., Daneshvar, D. H., Alvarez, V. E., Lee, H.-S., Hall, G., Wojtowicz, S. M., Baugh, C. M., et al. (2013) · Brain · doi:10.1093/brain/aws307 · Cited by 2,098
Systematic meta-analyses of Alzheimer disease genetic association studies: the AlzGene database
Bertram, L., McQueen, M. B., Mullin, K., Blacker, D., & Tanzi, R. E. (2007) · Nature Genetics · doi:10.1038/ng1934 · Cited by 1,857
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- W Brandenburg, 1954, Dementia pugilistica with anatomical findings [German], Virchows Arch, 325, 680
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease
Armstrong, R. A. (2019) · Folia Neuropathologica · doi:10.5114/fn.2019.85929 · Cited by 679
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy pathology in a neurodegenerative disorders brain bank
Bieniek, K. F., Ross, O. A., Cormier, K. A., Walton, R. L., Soto-Ortolaza, A., Johnston, A. E., DeSaro, P., Boylan, K. B., Graff-Radford, N. R., Wszolek, Z. K., et al. (2015) · Acta Neuropathologica · doi:10.1007/s00401-015-1502-4 · Cited by 323
Fann, J. R., Ribe, A. R., Pedersen, H. S., Fenger-Grøn, M., Christensen, J., Benros, M. E., & Vestergaard, M. (2018) · The Lancet Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/s2215-0366(18)30065-8 · Cited by 322
RhoA-ROCK Signaling as a Therapeutic Target in Traumatic Brain Injury
Mulherkar, S., & Tolias, K. F. (2020) · Cells · doi:10.3390/cells9010245 · Cited by 179
Visual problems associated with traumatic brain injury
Armstrong, R. A. (2018) · Clinical and Experimental Optometry · doi:10.1111/cxo.12670 · Cited by 177
Metadata
- Authors
- Maroon, J. C., Winkelman, R., Bost, J., Amos, A., Mathyssek, C., & Miele, V.
- Affiliations
- University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Bost, Jeffrey
- Venue
- PLoS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2015-02-11
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- e0117338
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4324991
- OpenAlex
- W2143952936
- Cited by
- 175
- References
- 94
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 18 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 16
- FWCI
- 3.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2015-06-03)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- D-Scholarship@Pitt (University of Pittsburgh) (acceptedVersion)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- Mylan
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Clinical Neurology › Traumatic Brain Injury Research
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Clinical Neurology › Traumatic Brain Injury and Neurovascular Disturbances
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Automotive and Human Injury Biomechanics
- Keywords
- chronic traumatic encephalopathy, contact sports, mild traumatic brain injury, neuropathology, risk factors, APOE genotype, substance abuse, suicide, American football players, military veterans, incidence and prevalence, neurodegenerative diseases
- MeSH terms
- Brain Injuries, Chronic Disease, Humans, Sports
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
