Fig. 1

a and b illustrate every patient as an individual line with the biomarker S100B (a) and neuron-specific enolase (NSE) (b) on the y-axis and time after trauma on the x-axis (hours). Colors are corresponding to outcome with darker color indicating a worse outcome, which becomes more favorable as it gets lighter. c and d are averages of the different GOS groups. As is shown by (a and b), there is limited data after 48 hours so it should be interpreted with caution. e and f are line plots indicating when to sample a biomarker after trauma to achieve maximum outcome prediction to long-term GOS1–5. The x-axis shows when in time since the trauma the sample of S100B (e) and NSE (f) was acquired (hours). The y-axis represents the Nagelkerke’s pseudo-R² of a prediction model (proportional odds) toward GOS1–5, using either logged S100B (e) or NSE (f). The pseudo-R² is calculated in each point using a sliding window incorporating 200 data points in chronological order. If a patient is represented more than once the sample is averaged, thus retaining independent points. The graph stops at approximately 48 hours as the later data points will be included in that final measurement. The line represents a locally weighted scatterplot smoothing (LOWESS), which is a nonlinear regression of the data points in the plots, a bootstrap confidence interval using two standard deviations is provided. Finally, in (g and h), which use the same method as in (e and f), but here the explained variance (y-axis) is how well the presence of extracranial multitrauma explains the levels of S100B (g) and NSE (h)