Herein, a multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNT)-based colorimetric probe was designed to discover and monitor the level of apolipoprotein-L1 (ApoL1) in lumbar disc herniation (LDH) patients. ApoL1 could be easily found in human serum of the LDH group, but not obviously expressed in the normal control group (Ctrl), spine spondylolisthesis (SSP) group, spinal fracture (SFR) group, and spine scoliosis (SSC) group. Furthermore, the as-prepared MWNT-based probe was also used to track the recovery of LDH patients who have successful surgery operation. The P value of early diagnosis and recovery monitoring was <0.001 and >0.05 for the proposed method and a conventional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), respectively, suggesting this detection strategy had significant differences compared with the traditional ELISA. All experimental results showed that ApoL1 might be a potential biomarker for early diagnosis of LDH. This proposed detection strategy has a potential application in discovering new biomarkers of diseases. colorimetric probe, apolipoprotein-L1, early diagnosis, recovery monitoring Citation: LH. Colorimetric detection and efficient monitoring of a potential biomarker of lumbar disc herniation using carbon nanotube-based probe.