Biomarkers of Organ Injury

A molecular biomarker is an entity whose release, abundance and/or modification state is altered as a result of injury or disease, and can be used to aid diagnosis. The concentrations of injury biomarkers are typically highest within the injured organ, but may be measurable in body fluids. Injuries such as trauma often result in damage to multiple organs, requiring biomarkers that can specifically identify the organs that are injured. Biomarkers such as glial fibrillary acidic protein for brain injury, kidney injury marker-1 for kidney injury, cardiac troponin for heart damage, intestinal-type fatty acid binding protein for gut injury, and d-dimer for coagulopathy have been shown to have clinical diagnostic utility to detect injury to individual organs. The long-term objective of injury-associated biomarker research is to identify and validate a panel of biomarkers to diagnose (or exclude) injury to various organs and/or predict ensuing symptoms/outcome. Unfortunately, such a panel is not currently available. This review will critically assess the current status and related patents of individual biomarkers being investigated for the diagnosis of injury to specific organs, and discuss the feasibility of generating a panel of biomarkers that can be used to diagnose injury to multiple organs.