Serum biomarkers as early indicators of outcomes in spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage
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Anna Maria Auricchio
, Giulia Napoli
, Giovanni Maria Ceccarelli , Renata Martinelli , Grazia Menna , Marco Obersnel , Luca Scarcia , Andrea Urbani , Alessandro Olivi , Giuseppe Maria Della Pepa und Silvia Baroni
Abstract
Objectives
Spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage (sSAH) is a life-threatening neurological event with high morbidity and mortality. Predicting patient outcomes remains challenging, necessitating novel prognostic tools. This study evaluates the prognostic value of central and systemic serum biomarkers, including S100, neuron-specific enolase (NSE), glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), ubiquitin carboxy-terminal hydrolase L1 (UCHL-1), soluble suppression of tumorigenicity 2 (sST2), and soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) in acute sSAH.
Methods
A prospective observational study was conducted on 91 sSAH patients admitted to the Emergency Department. Biomarkers were measured 24 h post-admission and correlated with clinical severity using the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) at 24 h and 3 months. Statistical analyses included correlation tests, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, and partial least squares discriminant analysis with 10-fold cross-validation (PLS-DA) to assess predictive accuracy.
Results
Patients with unfavorable outcomes (mRS 3–6) exhibited significantly higher median levels of all biomarkers. GFAP (ρ=0.74, p<0.0001) and S100 (ρ=0.65, p<0.0001) strongly correlated with hemorrhage volume. ROC analysis confirmed GFAP and S100 as the most effective central biomarkers (AUC=0.951), while sST2 demonstrated the highest prognostic sensitivity (97.1 %). PLS-DA further validated the prognostic relevance of sST2, GFAP, and S100.
Conclusions
Early biomarker assessment enhances sSAH prognosis, complementing neuroimaging. GFAP and S100 strongly correlate with brain injury severity, while sST2 predicts 3-months outcomes. Integrating these biomarkers into routine practice may improve early risk stratification and patient management.
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Research ethics: IRB approval obtained (FPG/ID 6185).
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Informed consent: Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.
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Author contributions: All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.
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Use of Large Language Models, AI and Machine Learning Tools: None declared.
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Conflict of interest: The authors state no conflict of interest.
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Research funding: None declared.
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Data availability: Upon reasonable request.
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Supplementary Material
This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/cclm-2025-0309).
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Quality indicators: an evolving target for laboratory medicine
- Reviews
- Regulating the future of laboratory medicine: European regulatory landscape of AI-driven medical device software in laboratory medicine
- The spectrum of nuclear patterns with stained metaphase chromosome plate: morphology nuances, immunological associations, and clinical relevance
- Opinion Papers
- Comprehensive assessment of medical laboratory performance: a 4D model of quality, economics, velocity, and productivity indicators
- Detecting cardiac injury: the next generation of high-sensitivity cardiac troponins improving diagnostic outcomes
- Perspectives
- Can Theranos resurrect from its ashes?
- Guidelines and Recommendations
- Australasian guideline for the performance of sweat chloride testing 3rd edition: to support cystic fibrosis screening, diagnosis and monitoring
- General Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine
- Recommendations for the integration of standardized quality indicators for glucose point-of-care testing
- A cost-effective assessment for the combination of indirect immunofluorescence and solid-phase assay in ANA-screening
- Assessment of measurement uncertainty of immunoassays and LC-MS/MS methods for serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D
- A novel immunoprecipitation-based targeted liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry analysis for accurate determination for copeptin in human serum
- Histamine metabolite to basal serum tryptase ratios in systemic mastocytosis and hereditary alpha tryptasemia using a validated LC-MS/MS approach
- Machine learning algorithms with body fluid parameters: an interpretable framework for malignant cell screening in cerebrospinal fluid
- Impact of analytical bias on machine learning models for sepsis prediction using laboratory data
- Immunochemical measurement of urinary free light chains and Bence Jones proteinuria
- Serum biomarkers as early indicators of outcomes in spontaneous subarachnoid hemorrhage
- High myoglobin plasma samples risk being reported as falsely low due to antigen excess – follow up after a 2-year period of using a mitigating procedure
- Candidate Reference Measurement Procedures and Materials
- Commutability evaluation of glycated albumin candidate EQA materials
- Reference Values and Biological Variations
- Health-related reference intervals for heavy metals in non-exposed young adults
- Hematology and Coagulation
- Practical handling of hemolytic, icteric and lipemic samples for coagulation testing in European laboratories. A collaborative survey from the European Organisation for External Quality Assurance Providers in Laboratory Medicine (EQALM)
- Cancer Diagnostics
- Assessment of atypical cells in detecting bladder cancer in female patients
- Cardiovascular Diseases
- False-positive cardiac troponin I values due to macrotroponin in healthy athletes after COVID-19
- Diabetes
- A comparison of current methods to measure antibodies in type 1 diabetes
- Letters to the Editor
- The neglected issue of pyridoxal- 5′ phosphate
- Error in prostate-specific antigen levels after prostate cancer treatment with radical prostatectomy
- Arivale is dead ‒ Hooke is alive
- A single dose of 20-mg of ostarine is detectable in hair
- Growing importance of vocabularies in medical laboratories
- Congress Abstracts
- 62nd National Congress of the Hungarian Society of Laboratory Medicine Szeged, Hungary, August 28–30, 2025