clinical utility of serum opalin in traumatic brain injury

Introduction: despite traumatic brain injury (tbi) being a leading cause of global morbidity and mortality, it lacks easy-to-access or portable, reliable biomarkers for early diagnosis. this study was designed to evaluate serum opalin, a cns-specific protein, in drug-naïve tbi patients.materials & methods: conducted as a prospective case-control study at a tertiary care setting, 60 drug-naïve tbi patients and 60 healthy controls (hc) were evaluated for serum opalin levels.results:  tbi patients showed significant alterations in serum opalin levels. opalin demonstrated high diagnostic accuracy (auc: 0.943) with 86.67% sensitivity and 95% specificity at a cut-off of 321.7 pg/ml. strong correlations were found between opalin levels and tbi severity (using ct scan and glasgow coma scale score).conclusion:  this research underscores the potential application of serum opalin to augment current evaluation methods like ct scan and glasgow coma scale evaluations.