Diagnostic role of serum testican and ubiquitin levels in patients with head trauma

We aimed to determine if testican-1 and ubiquitin can serve as early indicators for diagnosing worsening clinical course (presence of intraparenchymal pathology) and mortality in patients with moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI).In this study, we conducted an observational and prospective study in the Emergency Department (ED) of a tertiary care hospital. The department admitted an average of 25,000 patients per month between October 2020 and March 2021. We focused on patients over 18 years old with moderate traumatic brain injury (Glasgow coma score (GCS): 9–13). We compared the prognostic values of blood testican and ubiquitin levels with Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis for intracranial pathologies resulting from head trauma. Additionally, we used logistic regression analysis to compare the effectiveness of these markers in diagnosing intraparenchymal injury. The study included a total of 89 patients, with 45 in the case group (moderate TBI) and 44 in the healthy control group. It was found that levels of ubiquitin and testican levels were significantly higher in patients with intraparenchymal pathology (p = 0.048, p = 0.046, respectively). The cut-off point for detecting intraparenchymal pathology was 161.3 pg/mL for testican (Area under curve (AUC): 0.810; min: 0.654; max: 0.965, p = 0.002) and 44.42 ng/mL for Ubiquitin (AUC: 0.863; min: 0.727; max: 1.000, p < 0.001). High testican-1 and ubiquitin levels were independent markers for intraparenchymal pathology in moderate head trauma.

Biomarkers; Diagnostics; Moderate traumatic brain injury; Testican; Ubiquitin

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