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Immunology

The immune health metric as an indicator of health and disease

Nature Reviews Rheumatology (2024)Cite this article

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Immune health has been considered impossible to assess through the use of traditional biomarkers. The newly devised immune health metric (IHM) integrates diverse biological data to quantify immune function, offering a comprehensive indicator for the evaluation of immune health. The potential of the IHM to distinguish healthy individuals from patients with monogenic or polygenic immune-mediated diseases might lead to revolutionary changes in treatment strategies for rheumatic diseases.

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Fig. 1: The immune health ‘thermometer’.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Targeted Therapies, School of Medicine, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu, Japan

    Satoshi Kubo

  2. The First Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Kitakyushu, Japan

    Yoshiya Tanaka

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  1. Satoshi Kubo
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  2. Yoshiya Tanaka
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Correspondence to Yoshiya Tanaka.

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Competing interests

S.K. has received speaking fees from Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Abbvie, Bristol-Myers, Astra-Zeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim and Eisai, and research grants from Daiichi-Sankyo, Abbvie, Boehringer Ingelheim and Astellas. Y. T. has received speaking fees or honoraria from Abbvie, Eisai, Chugai, Eli-Lilly, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Taisho, AstraZeneca, Daiichi-Sankyo, Gilead, Pfizer, UCB, Asahi-kasei and Astellas, and research grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Taisho and Chugai.

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Kubo, S., Tanaka, Y. The immune health metric as an indicator of health and disease. Nat Rev Rheumatol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41584-024-01162-0

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