Citation

Mannix R, Eisenberg M, Berry M, Meehan W, Hayes RL. J. Neurotrauma 2014; 31(11): 1072-1075.

Affiliation

Children's Hospital Boston, Medicine, Division of Emergency Medicine, 300 Longwood Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts, United States, 02115, 617-355-9858 ; rebekah.mannix@childrens.harvard.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Mary Ann Liebert Publishers)

DOI

10.1089/neu.2013.3265

PMID

24494742

Abstract

Pediatric emergency department (ED) visits for concussion have nearly tripled in the past decade. Despite this, there are limited bedside tools available to objectively diagnose injury and prognosticate recovery. Here, we perform a preliminary evaluation of the utility of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) in predicting initial and follow up symptom burden in children and young adults aged 11-21 years presenting to the ED after concussion. We enrolled 13 children and young adults presenting to the ED within 24 hours of concussion and obtained initial serum samples at that time as well as follow up samples within 24-72 hours of injury. Initial GFAP levels were associated with initial and follow up symptom burden up to one month after injury while follow up GFAP levels did not correlate with symptom burden. These preliminary data suggest that GFAP may offer an objective measure of injury and recovery after pediatric concussion, potentially offering clinicians a new tool in the management of this common injury.

Language: en