Biomarkers in HIV disease

摘要

As noted by Stimbu and Tavel in their introductory paper, the term biomarker is a combination of the words biologic and marker and refers to a broad subcategory of medical signs that can be measured accurately and repro-ducibly. Biomarkers can be used to explore physiologic and clinical outcomes in large numbers of individuals and have been used in clinical medicine for several decades. Determination of the concentration and/or change over time of these markers in various body fluids has been used for multiple purposes, including as a research tool to better understand pathogenetic evolution of disease, as a factor improving the ability to predict the outcome of a disease, and as a surrogate of efficacy and/or safety of medical interventions.