How about this information out of Canada, from the Montreal Gazette;

The new study enrolled 295 people – 96 of whom had a mild or moderate concussion. They were compared to two “control” groups: normal adult volunteers without any injuries whatsoever, and “non-head injured” patients treated in emergency after a car crash or with a broken bone, but no head trauma.

Some earlier proteins studied in brain injuries have also been found in bones. “So if a patient has multiple trauma with a broken leg and head injury, we can’t tell if the protein is coming from the broken leg, or the brain,” Papa said.

Her team found two proteins were higher only in the blood of patients with a brain injury. “Patients who walked off the street had almost no levels of marker in their blood – we detected almost nothing,” she said.

They took it to the next level by comparing the blood tests to CT scans. The more severe the brain lesions, the higher the protein levels in blood. Papa said the proteins are detect-able in blood within an hour of injury; up to four hours later, they’re still elevated. The study also found that these protein levels were higher in patients who needed urgent surgery.

“The key is, could these proteins tell us in advance how severe the head injury is, and is this patient going to require some kind of neurosurgery?” “There’s really no approved blood test for the brain as we know it right now,” Papa said. “When people come in with heart attacks, you do a blood test to see if there’s heart dam-age.” There are blood tests for the kidneys, liver and thyroid.

More research is needed to validate the findings. But Papa believes a blood test for concussions will be available in emergency departments within five years.