A salivary test to diagnose concussion? We talk with Dr Simon Kemp and Dr Patrick O’Halloran Ep #471

BMJ talk medicine

Dr Simon Kemp is a Sport and Exercise Medicine consultant, and Medical Services Director at the Rugby Football Union. He is a leading researcher in Rugby Medicine, with a wide and high-impact research portfolio. Dr Patrick O’Halloran is a Sport and Exercise Medicine Registrar in the UK who is undertaking a PhD at the University of Birmingham. He also works as a senior medical advisor to Marker. They both join us in this podcast to talk about their recently published paper on the diagnostic signatures of concussion in the saliva of male athletes. In this 15-minute chat, we talk about the importance of developing objective measures in diagnosing concussions, how they went about their ground-breaking trial and much more. You can find their paper ‘Unique diagnostic signatures of concussion in the saliva of male athletes: the Study of Concussion in Rugby Union through MicroRNAs (SCRUM)’, via the link below: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/09/bjsports-2020-103274