title: Tumor necrosis factor-alpha is a potential diagnostic biomarker for chronic neuropathic pain after spinal cord injury.
abstract: Neuropathic pain (NP) is one of the most common complications after spinal cord injury (SCI), but no protein biomarkers has ever been introduced into clinical diagnosis. Previous studies implicated that toll-like receptor (TLR) 4 played a critical role in the development of NP in animal SCI models. Here, a total of 140 participants were recruited, 70 of them were SCI-NP subject and the rest 70 controls did not show neuropathic symptoms. TLR4 was upregulated significantly in SCI-NP patients compared with SCI-noNP subjects. Furthermore, we measured the concentrations of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), two TLR4 downstream pro-inflammatory cytokines, to assess their diagnostic values. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis revealed that TNF-α had great potential advantages to predict the progression of neuropathy, the risks of NP were strongly increased in SCI subjects with higher levels of TNF-α (odds ratio: 4.92; 95% confidence interval: 1.89-12.32). These results suggested neuro-immune activation contributed to the development of neuropathic disorder after SCI, and TNF-α could be a potential sensitive diagnostic biomarker for chronic neuropathic pain in SCI patients.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoqiang
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: E
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Chinese Medical Hospital in Hulan District, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Huiyong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Feng
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Yanhui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Second Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China. Electronic address: doctorjinglongyan@163.com.
authors.forename: Jinglong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015850:Interleukin-6 / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D009437:Neuralgia / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000097:blood; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000378:metabolism / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D015850:Interleukin-6; D012333:RNA, Messenger; D014409:Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha
keywords: Interleukin-6; Neuropathic pain; Spinal cord injury; Toll-like receptor 4; Tumor necrosis factor-alpha