Journal of clinical neuroscience : official journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia
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Multicenter Study Observational Study
COMT Val158Met polymorphism is associated with post-traumatic stress disorder and functional outcome following mild traumatic brain injury.
Mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) results in variable clinical trajectories and outcomes. The source of variability remains unclear, but may involve genetic variations, such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP in catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) is suggested to influence development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but its role in TBI remains unclear. ⋯ PTSD emerged as a strong predictor of poorer outcome on GOSE (multivariable OR 0.09, 95% CI [0.03-0.26]), which persists after controlling for age, GCS, and race. When accounting for PTSD in multivariable analysis, the association of COMT genotype and GOSE did not remain significant (multivariable OR 1.73, 95% CI [0.69-4.35]). Whether COMT genotype indirectly influences global functional outcome through PTSD remains to be determined and larger studies in more diverse populations are needed to confirm these findings.