2019 Volume 32 Issue 2 Pages 86-94
Cytokines are multifunctional proteins which play various roles including cell growth, differentiation, migration and metabolism in vivo. Cytokines regulate inflammatory reactions to maintain homeostasis. In pediatric inflammatory diseases, homeostatic balance maintained by cytokine network is broken down by excessive immune response. Furthermore, overproduction of cytokines increase severity in these inflammatory diseases. Cytokine profile analysis which evaluates multiple cytokines simultaneously reflects immune response and inflammatory condition in each patient. Therefore, cytokine profile analysis is a very useful approach for the evaluation of patientʼs condition, disease activity, severity and also differential diagnosis. It is desired that cytokine profile analysis is more widely used in a variety of ways in clinical practice.
