Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 10 No. 5 | May 2018

42 Inside Hokie Sports Sixteen years hasn’t dimmed Dr. Gunnar Brolinson’s memory of the conversation. Trying time and time again to secure grant money to study helmet safety and start concussion research—and failing each time—Brolinson called one of the organizations to whom he applied for funding just to get a full explanation for the denial. “This is a junk diagnosis,” he was told. “This is junk science, and this will never be funded.” That conversation took place in 2003. Fast forward 15 years, and Brolinson, who doubles as a Virginia Tech Athletics team physician and the vice provost for research at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, laughs at the memory, particularly after the extraordinary news that he received in mid-February related to the topics. Years of research, resources and devotion paid off handsomely, as Brolinson received an email from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that granted the approval for the marketing of a blood test to be used to evaluate mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)—commonly referred to as concussion. “For the first time, we have a blood test panel that helps us make a clinical diagnosis of mTBI [mild traumatic brain injury] and will be the ‘go-no go’ test for whether we’re going to order a CT scan or not,” Brolinson said. “So it’s pretty cool. It’s really exciting, and we couldn’t be happier to be a part of that research.” The news sent shockwaves through the medical industry, as Brolinson and a team of doctors and researchers from around the world found a solution to a major medical issue. Sports fans know all about the issues surrounding concussions in athletics, particularly football, and look at the issue through that prism, but concussions can affect anyone—from the kid who falls while riding his bike to the adult in a car accident to the military service member in combat. Making an accurate diagnosis of a concussion always has been the difficult part. In many cases, a person remains conscious and shows few symptoms, or the symptoms present themselves later (headache, dizziness, etc.). Often, a person doesn’t realize he or she has been concussed. So often, doctors play a bit of a guessing game. Doctors never want to miss a diagnosis, so in the case of concussions, they frequently order a CAT scan, often referred to as CT scans, of the brain. CT scans don’t always work, though, and they are expensive and expose people to radiation. That, Brolinson said, leaves doctors, “licking their finger and sticking it in the wind” to try to determine if a CT scan is warranted TECH ATHLETICS involved in creating Dr. Gunnar Brolinson, one of Tech’s team physicians, and a group of international doctors and researchers recently received FDA approval for a blood test to be used to diagnose concussions by Jimmy Robertson