• Leonardo Lorente, María M Martín, Agustín F González-Rivero, Antonia Pérez-Cejas, Mónica Argueso, Luis Ramos, Jordi Solé-Violán, Juan J Cáceres, Alejandro Jiménez, and Victor García-Marín.
• Intensive Care Unit, Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Ofra, s/n. La Laguna, 38320 Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain. lorentemartin@msn.com.
• Brain Sci. 2019 Oct 10; 9 (10).

ObjectiveApoptosis increases in traumatic brain injury (TBI). Caspase-cleaved cytokeratin (CCCK)-18 in blood during apoptosis could appear. At the time of admission due to TBI, higher blood CCCK-18 levels were found in non-surviving than in surviving patients. Therefore, the objective of our study was to analyze whether serum CCCK-18 levels determined during the first week after TBI could predict early mortality (at 30 days).MethodsSevere TBI patients were included (considering severe when Glasgow Coma Scale < 9) in this observational and multicentre study. Serum CCCK-18 levels were determined at day 1 of TBI, and at days 4 and 8 after TBI.ResultsSerum CCCK-18 levels at day 1 of TBI, and in the days 4 and 8 after TBI were higher (p < 0.001) in non-surviving than in surviving patients (34 and 90 patients, respectively) and could predict early mortality (p < 0.001 in the area under the curve).ConclusionsThe new findings from our study were that serum CCCK-18 levels at any moment of the first week of TBI were higher in non-surviving patients and were able to predict early mortality.

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