Age-Dependent Decrease in Serum Transforming Growth Factor (TGF)-Beta 1 in Healthy Japanese Individuals; Population Study of Serum TGF-Beta 1 Level in Japanese

Transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-β1), a multi-functional cytokine, is involved in regulating a variety of cellular activities and the serum/plasma TGF-β1 level is altered with various diseases. However, most published reports have described adult patients, and so we investigated the clinical significance of serum TGF-β1 level in pediatric patients. The diagnostic application of the measurement of serum TGF-β1 level depends critically on the control value, however, there is no information on the control value of serum TGF-β1 for children