Army studies use of blood test to detect TBIs - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Army studies use of blood test to detect TBIs

The Army says it has begun trials of a simple blood test that can diagnose traumatic brain injuries, a signature wound of the war that is nevertheless tough to detect.

The study of more than 1,600 patients will culminate with submission of its findings to the Food and Drug Administration by year's end, according to Col. Dallas Hack of the Army's Combat Casualty Care Research Program.

In the military, one of the leading causes of traumatic brain injuries is blasts from roadside bombs. By 2010, roughly 20,000 brain injury cases had been diagnosed in the Army and more than 30,000 cases were diagnosed across the services, according to Defense Department statistics.

The challenge is finding an objective means of diagnosing brain injuries. Often the symptoms can go undetected, Hack said. Furthermore, post-traumatic stress and brain injuries have common symptoms that can confuse diagnoses and treatment.

“If you do not know you have a brain injury, you do not know what type of treatment to use,” Hack said. “The treatment for brain injuries is rest, and if someone had post-traumatic stress, you would do something very active, like psychotherapy.”

Army officials hope to one day have a device to test for concussions similar to those diabetics use for testing blood sugar. It would use a drop of blood from a finger prick to detect the unique proteins released into the blood when a person suffers a brain injury.

“Now tell me that’s not going to be huge,” said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, who touted the study in a recent interview with Army Times.

“We’ll be able to go up to a soldier or anybody after a concussive event, be able to prick their finger and immediately get a read out on whether or not those biomarkers appear in their blood,” he said.

The test will look for hyperphosphorylated tau protein, which is not found in great quantities in normal brains but collects in the brains of people who have suffered repeated blows to the head, such as boxers and some soldiers, according to research performed by Ann McKee, a neural pathologist at Boston University.

In recent months, researchers have accelerated the study to create the test, expanding it to roughly 30 civilian trauma centers. The study began in Europe in June and is set to start in the U.S. next month, Hack said.

The program, initially paid for by the Army, has benefited from additional funding approved under then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates to target the medical issues of military personnel, Hack said.

Scientists long believed that the proteins that resulted from cell damage associated with brain injuries remain within the blood-brain barrier that surrounds and protects the brain.

However, researchers in the past decade have been able to develop sensitive enough tests that those proteins can be detected in the blood stream.

Hack said the research will not only make a difference on the battlefield but eventually tests will detect biomarkers from brain injuries months and years old.

The test's other benefit is that it will help scientists learn how people heal from brain injuries and what drugs in development are effective in treating them.