Abstract:Objective To explore the changes of serum inflammatory factors and cerebrospinal fluid biochemical indicators in patients with acute spinal cord injury (SCI) of different American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) grades.Methods A total of 120 patients with acute SCI in our hospital from September 2019 to September 2021 were selected as the SCI group. According to ASIA grades, the patients were divided into normal neurological function group (34 cases), incomplete spinal cord injury group (58 cases) and complete spinal cord injury group (28 cases). Another 50 healthy people who underwent health checkup in our hospital during the same time were selected as the health group. Serum inflammatory factors [interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), C-reactive protein (CRP), and transforming growth factor β1 (TGF-β1) ] and cerebrospinal fluid biochemical indicators [neuron specific enolase (NSE) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) ] of patients in SCI group and healthy group were measured at admission. The levels of serum inflammatory factors and cerebrospinal fluid biochemical indicators were compared between the two groups and among patients with different ASIA grades of acute spinal cord injury. The diagnostic values of IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, TGF-β1, NSE and GFAP levels for acute SCI were analyzed by receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curves. Spearman method was applied to analyze the correlations between ASIA grades and the levels of IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, TGF-β1, NSE and GFAP in patients with acute SCI.Results The levels of serum inflammatory factors and cerebrospinal fluid biochemical indicators in the SCI group were higher than those in the healthy group (P < 0.05). The levels of IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, TGF-β1, NSE and GFAP in the incomplete spinal cord injury group and complete spinal cord injury group were higher than those in the normal neurological function group (P < 0.05). ROC curve analysis found that the sensitivities of IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, TGF-β1, NSE and GFAP for predicting the occurrence of acute SCI were 89.10% (95% CI: 0.847, 0.946), 92.00% (95% CI: 0.833, 0.974), 97.10% (95% CI: 0.911, 0.981), 91.00% (95% CI: 0.871, 0.958), 76.70% (95% CI: 0.506, 0.855), and 85.80% (95% CI: 0.767, 0.898), with the specificities being 51.20% (95% CI: 0.436, 0.794), 44.60% (95% CI: 0.224, 0.720), 62.40% (95% CI: 0.514, 0.799), 60.30% (95% CI: 0.436, 0.721), 92.00% (95% CI: 0.833, 0.972), and 70.00% (95% CI: 0.597, 0.820), and the areas under the ROC curves being 0.897 (95% CI: 0.882, 0.973), 0.814 (95% CI: 0.725, 0.931), 0.946 (95% CI: 0.911, 0.983), 0.914 (95% CI: 0.876, 0.924), 0.915 (95% CI: 0.882, 0.959), and 0.833 (95% CI: 0.714, 0.936), respectively. The correlation analysis revealed that the ASIA grades of acute SCI were negatively correlated with the levels of IL-6, TNF-α, CRP, TGF-β1, NSE and GFAP (rs = -0.542, -0.486, -0.487, -0.536, -0.517 and -0.467, all P < 0.05).Conclusions There are differences in serum levels of IL-6, TNF-α, CRP and TGF-β1 in patients with acute SCI of different ASIA grades, and these indicators are of high sensitivity but low specificity for predicting the occurrence of acute SIC. Besides, cerebrospinal fluid NSE and GFAP could also be established as biomarkers to predict the occurrence of acute SCI, and their levels are correlated with ASIA grades.