title: Acute diagnostic biomarkers for spinal cord injury: review of the literature and preliminary research report.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Many efforts have been made to create new diagnostic technologies for use in the diagnosis of central nervous system injury. However, there is still no consensus for the use of biomarkers in clinical acute spinal cord injury (SCI). The aims of this review are (1) to evaluate the current status of neurochemical biomarkers and (2) to discuss their potential acute diagnostic role in SCI by reviewing the literature.
  
  
  METHODS
  PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) was searched up to 2012 to identify publications concerning diagnostic biomarkers in SCI. To support more knowledge, we also checked secondary references in the primarily retrieved literature.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Neurofilaments, cleaved-Tau, microtubule-associated protein 2, myelin basic protein, neuron-specific enolase, S100β, and glial fibrillary acidic protein were identified as structural protein biomarkers in SCI by this review process. We could not find reports relating ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase-L1 and α-II spectrin breakdown products, which are widely researched in other central nervous system injuries. Therefore, we present our preliminary data relating to these two biomarkers. Some of biomarkers showed promising results for SCI diagnosis and outcome prediction; however, there were unresolved issues relating to accuracy and their accessibility.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Currently, there still are not many reports focused on diagnostic biomarkers in SCI. This fact warranted the need for greater efforts to innovate sensitive and reliable biomarkers for SCI.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA; Department of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan. Electronic address: SYokobori@med.miami.edu.
authors.forename: Shoji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yokobori
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Zhiqun
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Ahmed
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Moghieb
authors.affiliation: Banyan Biomarkers, Inc., Alachua, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Stefania
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mondello
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Shyam
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gajavelli
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: W Dalton
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Dietrich
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bramlett
authors.affiliation: Banyan Biomarkers, Inc., Alachua, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Ronald L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Hayes
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: Kevin K W
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida, USA.
authors.forename: M Ross
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Bullock
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis*; D006801:Humans; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins / Q000032:analysis; D011379:Prognosis; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000628:therapy; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins
keywords: Biomarker; Pathophysiology; Spinal cord injury; Treatment