Prognostic Significance of Translocator Protein in Brain Tissue Following Traumatic Brain Injury

AIM: To measure the expression of translocator protein (TSPO) in brain tissue following traumatic brain injury (TBI), and to determine whether TSPO can predict patient outcomes. MATERIAL and METHODS: TBI patients requiring removal of intracranial hematoma were recruited from Wujin Hospital Affiliated with Jiangsu University between January 2018 and March 2021. TBI patients were divided into unfavorable and favorable groups according to the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) score. The level of TSPO in brain samples was analyzed by Western blot and RESULTS: The expression of TSPO in the unfavorable group was higher than that in the favorable group. Double immunofluorescence staining showed that the percentages of TSPO positive cells among IBA1 positive and GFAP positive cells were 45.2 +/- 3.1% and 3.5 +/- 0.6% respectively. After adjusting for age, sex, Computed tomography (CT), intracranial pressure (ICP) and Glasgow coma scale (GCS), we found that each 1-unit increase in TSPO was associated with a 40% higher occurrence of an unfavorable outcome (OR =1.4, 95% CI 0.4-5.6). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), specificity, and sensitivity of TSPO CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that higher TSPO expression was associated with a higher occurrence of unfavorable outcomes.