transforming growth factor β1 (tgf-β1) in the sera of postmenopausal osteoporotic females

Background: postmenopausal osteoporosis is a major cause of morbidity in postmenopausal females. transforming growth factor 1 (tgf-β1) and interleukin 18 (il-18) play complex roles in normal bone metabolism, and in pathophysiology of postmenopausal osteoporosis. objectives: the aim of this study was to design an analytic cross sectional study in order to further clarify the role of tgf-β1 and il-18 in osteoporosis of postmenopausal females. methods: a cross sectional study including 65 postmenopausal osteoporotic females as cases and 69 postmenopausal females of similar age without osteoporosis as controls was conducted. dual energy x-ray absorptiometry (dxa) was used to determine bone mass density (bmd) of participants and t-scoring was applied to establish whether the patient has osteoporosis or not. serum tgf-β1 and il-18 levels were measured by quantitative sandwich enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (elisa). results: serum tgf-β1 levels were significantly higher in osteoporotic postmenopausal females than non-osteoporotic individuals (23.8 vs. 15.8 ng/ml; p = 0.009). there was no difference between il-18 levels in the sera of osteoporotic and non-osteoporotic postmenopausal females in this study. there was a positive correlation between body mass index (bmi) and serum level of tgf-β1 (p = 0.04). conclusions: our study demonstrated that tgf-β1 serum levels is higher in osteoporotic postmenopausal females than nonosteoporotic ones, and probably aberrant increase in tgf-β1 in postmenopausal females can result in uncoupled bone resorption and formation, which leads to osteoporosis.