serum superoxide dismutase as a biomarker in severe traumatic brain injury: a case-control study

Background and aim: traumatic brain injury (tbi) is often described as a “hidden epidemic”. various biochemical markers reflecting cerebral damage can be used to correlate the patient’s prognosis and the development of secondary lesions. this study aims to study the human superoxide dismutase (sod) in the serum to evaluate its role in the outcome of tbi. methods and materials/patients: this observational study was conducted in patients with severe tbi referred to a tertiary care hospital in india. a total of 40 patients with severe tbi were enrolled, and 40 healthy people were selected as the control group. serum samples were assayed for serum sod using the elisa technique. results: the most common age group was 28-37 years old. of 40 patients, 28 were men (70%), and 12 were women (30 %). the most common type of injury was road traffic accident (70%), followed by fall from height (12.5%), physical assault (12.5%) and sports injury (5%). the most common computed tomography (ct) result was intra-cerebral hematoma (55%), followed by subarachnoid hemorrhage (sah) (10 %), skull fracture (10 %), subdural hemorrhage (sdh) (7.5%) and extradural hemorrhage (edh) (5%). the mean serum sod value in the severe tbi group was 23.23 u/ml, and in the control group, it was 135.93 u/ml, which was statistically significant. out of 40 patients, 24 (60%) had a good glasgow outcome scale (gos) at the time of discharge, and 16 (40%) had poor outcomes. a significant improvement was observed in outcome after six months compared to the glasgow outcome scale (gos) at discharge. conclusion: the results obtained in the study are preliminary, and more extensive prospective studies are needed to reach a definitive conclusion. a handful of studies on protein degradation products are available and need to be more comprehensive. in conclusion, with more extensive studies and continued exploration sod can become a reliable tool in tbi and can be integrated into standard care protocols.