Clinical Pediatric Emergency Medicine
Volume 7, Issue 3 , Pages 186-193, September 2006

The Use of Biomarkers After Inflicted Traumatic Brain Injury: Insight into Etiology, Pathophysiology, and Biochemistry

  • Rachel Pardes Berger, MD, MPH

      Affiliations

    • Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
    • Corresponding Author InformationReprint requests and correspondence: Rachel Berger MD, MPH, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, 3705 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.
    • ,
  • Kent Hymel, MD

      Affiliations

    • Department of Pediatrics, Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children, Falls Church, VA
    • ,
  • Wei-Min Gao, MD, PhD

      Affiliations

    • The Institute of Environmental and Human Health, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

Inflicted traumatic brain injury (iTBI) is the most common cause of severe brain injury in infants. Proper diagnosis is difficult even for experienced emergency department physicians. Misdiagnosis is common and can have catastrophic consequences for patients and society. After iTBI, biochemical markers are released from brain tissue and pass into the cerebrospinal fluid and serum. Measuring the concentrations of these markers may help to identify brain injury that could otherwise be missed. Biomarkers may also be able to help differentiate noninflicted TBI from iTBI, assist in the timing of iTBI, improve our understanding of the pathophysiology of iTBI, and predict outcome after iTBI.

Keywords: biomarkers, child abuse, neuron-specific enolase, S100B, myelin-basic protein, traumatic brain injury

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PII: S1522-8401(06)00044-9

doi:10.1016/j.cpem.2006.06.001

Clinical Pediatric Emergency Medicine
Volume 7, Issue 3 , Pages 186-193, September 2006

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