Late Australian Football Player Is the First Female Athlete to Be Diagnosed with CTE

Researchers in Australia have determined that Heather Anderson suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE

Less than a year after her death, researchers in Australia have determined that Australian football player Heather Anderson suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

The announcement marks the first known occurrence of a female athlete being diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease, according to findings in the Springer Medical Journal.

Anderson died by suicide last November at the age of 28. Her family donated her brain to the Australian Sports Brain Bank, according to the publication.

Related: Former NFL Player Vincent Jackson Had Stage 2 CTE at Time of Death, Wife Says

"She is the first female athlete diagnosed with CTE, but she will not be the last," the authors of the paper wrote.

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An avid footballer from the age of 5, Anderson played contact sports for 18 years — in both Australian rules football and rugby league, per the journal.

“By her mid-teens she had progressed to playing representative women’s Australian rules football, before entering that sport professionally in her early twenties. She retired after one professional season due to musculoskeletal injury," the journal wrote.

Related: Late NFL Star Demaryius Thomas, 33, Had Stage 2 CTE That Led to Cardiac Arrest, Parents Share

Family members reported that she had suffered at least one concussion, and had experienced as many as four others that had not been diagnosed.

Anderson was also active in the military for nine years and participated in amateur martial arts, her family told researchers, but did not report any concussions in those activities.

As defined by the Centers for Disease Control, concussions are traumatic injuries generated by hits to the head or body that cause the brain to bounce around the skull. The NFL as well as pro wrestling have had to confront the issue of CTE among its athletes due to a number of deaths in recent years.

Researchers call the news of Anderson's diagnosis "a sentinel case."

"This report may, thus, represent a sentinel case: as the representation of women in professional contact sports is growing, it seems likely that more CTE cases will be identified in female athletes."

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