10 Jul An Ultra-Early Inflammatory Biomarker of Traumatic Brain Injury
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Hill
Dr Lisa J Hill PhD
Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
Research Fellow
Neuroscience and Ophthalmology
Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
College of Medical and Dental Sciences
University of Birmingham UK
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death and disability among young adults and, according to the World Health Organization, by 2020 TBI will become the world’s leading cause of neurological disability across all age groups. Early and correct diagnosis of traumatic brain injury is one of the most challenging aspects faced by clinicians. Being able to detect compounds in the blood that help to determine how severe the brain injury is would be of great benefit to patients and aid in their treatment. Inflammatory markers are particularly suited for biomarker discovery as TBI leads to very early alterations in inflammatory proteins. The discovery of reliable biomarkers for the management of TBI would improve clinical interventions.
We collected blood samples from 30 injured patients within the first hour of injury prior to the patient arriving at hospital and analysed them. Analysis of protein biomarkers from blood taken within the first hour of injury has never been carried out until now. We used a panel of 92 inflammation-associated human proteins when analysing the blood samples. The analysis identified three inflammatory proteins, known as CST5, AXIN1 and TRAIL, as novel biomarkers of TBI.
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Response: Early pre-hospital detection of Traumatic brain injury would support clinical decision-making and the correct triage of major trauma. Moreover, the correct diagnosis of TBI, which is one of hardest diagnosis to make in medicine, would allow clinicians to implement strategies to reduce secondary brain injury at early stage, for example, by optimising blood and oxygen delivery to the brain and avoiding manoeuvres that could potentially increase intracranial pressure. In addition, this discovery has potential implications for drug development. Novel compounds could be given immediately after the injury (e.g. roadside), if there was sufficient confidence in the diagnosis of TBI.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: Further larger cohorts of patient samples would be ideal to further understand the role of these inflammatory proteins in Traumatic brain injury.
This publication was co-authored by Dr Lisa J Hill and Dr Valentina Di Pietro as equal contributors to the study.
The authors do not have any conflicts of interest.
MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.
Citation:
Lisa J. Hill, Valentina Di Pietro, Jon Hazeldine, David Davies, Emma Tomman, Ann Logan, Antonio Belli. Cystatin D (CST5): An ultra-early inflammatory biomarker of traumatic brain injury. Scientific Reports, 2017; 7 (1) DOI: 1038/s41598-017-04722-5
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Last Updated on July 10, 2017 by Marie Benz MD FAAD