Metabolomics: A New Frontier for Research in Pediatrics

Although it has been used in only a limited number of clinical studies so far, metabolomics seems to have promising applications. This approach carries the promise of a more individualized medicine thanks to the possibility of predicting the course of disease and the response to treatment on the basis of an individual’s metabolomic profile. Metabolomics has potential applications in both the diagnosis of diseases and the development of treatment strategies, with the advantage of the analysis being performed on biofluid samples that are collected noninvasively (eg, urine or exhaled breath condensate) or by only minimally invasive procedures (eg, blood drawing). Metabolomics can lead to the discovery of new noninvasive metabolic biomarkers that could be translated, in the near future, into clinical tools for diagnosing diseases and developing treatment strategies, paving the way toward a medicine tailored to the patient.