Metabolomics Applied to Pediatric Diseases: Opportunities and Challenges

Childhood is a specific life period. Pediatric disease has its unique physiological and pathological mechanism and thereby it requires distinctive considerations and special treatments. Metabolomics is used to monitor the body's physiological or pathological state by monitoring the changes of endogenous metabolites and biomarkers related to diseases， which provides a new basis for diagnosis and treatment of disease. In recent years， metabolomics has gradually been applied to pediatric diseases， bringing new opportunities for prevention， diagnosis and treatment of the diseases. This paper reviews the application of metabolomics to pathophysiological study of pediatric diseases from the two aspect of "preventive treatment of disease" and "treatment of diseases"， and further put forward the conceive of its application to TCM syndrome research of pediatric diseases.