Traumatic Brain Injury Prognosis Predicted by Blood Test

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) prognosis can be predicted based on blood tests taken on the day of injury. The study suggested that it is now possible for clinicians to determine whether a patient with TBI is likely to die or survive //with a severe disability. This finding will enable making decisions earlier in the possible treatment of TBI. Researchers from Michigan Medicine, the University of California San Francisco and the University of Pennsylvania analyzed day-of-injury blood tests of nearly 1,700 patients with TBI. Results published in The Lancet Neurology reveal that higher values of two protein biomarkers, GFAP and UCH-L1, are associated with death and severe injury.

According to first author Frederick Korley, M.D., PhD, associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, this is the first study to investigate the relationship between these two proteins' biomarker levels and all-cause mortality after TBI.

Importance of Protein Biomarker Blood Test in Modern Trauma Care

“Early and accurate prediction of TBI outcomes will help clinicians gauge how severe a brain injury is and inform how best to counsel family members about care for their loved ones with brain injury and what to expect with regards to their recovery. It will also help researchers more precisely target promising TBI therapeutics to the right TBI patients,” said Korley.

The usage of GFAP and UCH-L1 was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2018 to assist doctors in determining whether to obtain CT scans for mild traumatic brain injury.

The i-STAT Alinity and the ARCHITECT, both from Abbott Laboratories, were used to measure the proteins. The Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended, a measure that rates the functional state of TBI patients, was used to compare the results to assessments carried out six months following the injury.

“Modern trauma care can result in good outcomes in what we had once believed were non-survivable injuries. These blood tests are both diagnostic and prognostic, as well as easy to administer, safe and inexpensive,” said co-senior author Geoffrey Manley, M.D., PhD, professor and vice chair of neurosurgery at UCSF.

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Further research into the Role of New Biomarkers in Mild Brain Injury

Despite the promising findings for predicting bad outcomes in moderate and severe TBI, researchers suggest further research to fully understand the role of these biomarkers in mild TBI cases.

“As a next step, the TRACK-TBI team is planning a clinical trial that will examine the efficacy of promising therapeutic agents that may help traumatic brain injury patients recover quickly. As part of this clinical trial, these biomarkers will be used as an objective method for selecting the right patients to enrol in this trial. We will also use these biomarkers to monitor individual patient response to these promising therapeutics,” said Korley.

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Source-Medindia