Adelaide AFLW premiership player Heather Anderson is the first known professional female athlete to be diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).

Anderson, a member of the Crows’ flag-winning team in 2017, took her own life in November last year at the age of 28.

The Australian Sports Brain Bank has diagnosed Anderson as having had low-stage CTE and three lesions in her brain, according to the ABC.

The bank’s director Professor Michael Buckland said the diagnosis, reported in the Springer Medical Journal, is significant.

“While we’ve been finding CTE in males for quite some time, I think this is really the tip of the iceberg,” he told the ABC’s 7.30 Report.

“And it’s a real red flag that now women are participating [in contacts sports] just as men are, that we are going to start seeing more and more CTE cases in women.”

Anderson’s father, Brian Anderson, said the diagnosis was “a surprise but not a surprise”.

“Now that this report has been published, I’m sort of trying to think about how it might play out for female sportspeople everywhere,” he told the ABC.

“Suicide, it’s a tough one, it’s a tough way to see your child die, it’s tough to see your child die anyway.

“But suicide causes you to re-examine everything, to look at every interaction.”

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– AAP