Prognostic significance of translocator protein in the brain tissue following traumatic brain injury

Background: The study aimed to measure the expression of translocator protein (TSPO) in brain tissue following traumatic brain injury (TBI) and to determine whether TSPO can predict outcomes. Methods TBI patients requiring emergent craniectomy and removing of intracranial hematoma were recruited from Wujin Hospital Affiliated with Jiangsu University between January 2018 and May 2020. TBI patients were divided into unfavorable and favorable groups according to GOS score. The TSPO in brain samples was analyzed by western blot and immunocytochemistry. Results The western blot and immunocytochemistry showed that the TSPO in the unfavorable group was higher than that in the favorable group. Double immunofluorescence staining exhibited that the percentage of TSPO positive cells in IBA1 and GFAP positive cells was 45.2 ± 3.1% and 3.5 ± 0.6% respectively. After adjusting for age, sex, CT, ICP and GCS, we found each 1-unit increase in TSPO was associated with 40% higher occurrence of 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 was 0.87, 76.7%, 88.2% respectively. Conclusion Our study demonstrated that higher TSPO was associated with higher occurrence of unfavorable outcomes.