Meester Irene, Solis-Soto Juan Manuel
Faculty of Medicine Department of Immunology, UANL, Gonzalitos 235, Mitras Centro, Monterrey, NL, Mexico, CP64460.
Expert Opin Med Diagn. 2009 Mar;3(2):143-55. doi: 10.1517/17530050802708999.
Cytokines communicate between the cells of the immune system and its targets to maintain homeostasis after injury or pathogenic events. They are involved in almost any pathological situation imaginable.
To verify the importance of cytokines as biomarkers in current preclinical (aetiopathogenic, development of new therapies) and clinical studies (diagnosis, disease severity, prognosis and response to therapy).
METHOD/RESULTS: A Medline search with the query 'cytokine' AND 'biomarker' AND a variable for a variety of biomedical fields, followed by deeper-level searches, demonstrated the immense popularity of cytokines as biomarkers in almost any biomedical field.
As cytokines are not disease-specific they do not serve as single diagnostic biomarkers. The strength of the cytokines resides in monitoring disease severity, prognosis and response to treatment.
细胞因子在免疫系统细胞及其靶标之间传递信息，以在损伤或致病事件后维持体内平衡。它们几乎涉及任何可以想象到的病理情况。
验证细胞因子作为生物标志物在当前临床前（病因发病机制、新疗法开发）和临床研究（诊断、疾病严重程度、预后和治疗反应）中的重要性。
方法/结果：使用查询词“细胞因子”、“生物标志物”以及各种生物医学领域的变量在Medline数据库中进行检索，随后进行深入搜索，结果表明细胞因子作为生物标志物在几乎任何生物医学领域都非常受欢迎。
由于细胞因子并非疾病特异性的，因此它们不能作为单一的诊断生物标志物。细胞因子的优势在于监测疾病严重程度、预后和治疗反应。
