Quick test hope for concussion
A FINGER prick blood test may soon be able to show whether a person has concussion within minutes of an injury.
The Australian development is hoped to clear the way for sports players to return to the field within minutes of a head knock, or identify those suffering brain injuries so they can be safely managed.
Following the discovery of telltale biomarkers that can be detected in the blood of concussion victims, Melbourne’s The Alfred Hospital has undertaken early trials as proof of concept for a finger prick test – similar to those used to measure blood sugar.
As well as having the potential to revolutionise the management of concussion for AFL, NRL and other sporting codes, the high-level research is being funded by the Australian Defence Force in the hope it can help injured soldiers return to the battlefield.
The US military is also trialling the technology being developed by The Alfred, Sydney-based biotech start-up GLIA Diagnostics, and the Adelaidebased CSIRO.
The Alfred’s director of emergency medicine research Professor Biswadev Mitra said the blood test had the potential to become the first objective way to diagnose concussion, ending the need to sit out all head knock victims for weeks without being sure of injuries.
“It is quite advanced and we are to the level of building a small machine that can detect concussion,” Professor Mitra said.
“(Currently) When somebody hits their head and presents to their doctors a lot of it is very subjective, sometimes guesswork. Our aim is to develop a screening tool, where we can say at the point of care – whether that be on the playing field, the battlefield or wherever someone has had an injury – that you do not have a severe head injury or chance of concussion.
“We think it will take five-to-10 minutes to run at the max. We are trying to shorten that time as we go.”
An early prototype of the PCR test was able to detect concussion during a trial of 60 patients at The Alfred, however it has so far taken several hours to analyse each test.
But a CSIRO team led by Dr Helmut Thissen is now adapting its testing technology to run The Alfred’s biomarkers, and GLIA Diagnostics director Edmond Sorich believes a handheld, fast prototype will be ready for large-scale trials by mid-2022.