Saliva: A potential media for disease diagnostics and monitoring

• Published in: Oral oncology Vol. 48; no. 7; pp. 569 - 577
• Main Authors: Liu, Jingyi, Duan, Yixiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01.07.2012; Elsevier
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Biomarkers; Biomarkers - analysis; Breast Neoplasms - diagnosis; Breast Neoplasms - metabolism; Cancer; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - diagnosis; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell - metabolism; Disease diagnosis; Facial bones, jaws, teeth, parodontium: diseases, semeiology; Female; Hematology, Oncology and Palliative Medicine; Humans; Male; Medical sciences; Mouth Neoplasms - diagnosis; Mouth Neoplasms - metabolism; Non tumoral diseases; Oral squamous cell carcinoma; Otolaryngology; Otorhinolaryngology. Stomatology; Periodontal disease; Periodontal Diseases - diagnosis; Periodontal Diseases - metabolism; Prostatic Neoplasms - diagnosis; Prostatic Neoplasms - metabolism; Saliva; Saliva - chemistry; Saliva - metabolism; Sjogren's Syndrome - diagnosis; Sjogren's Syndrome - metabolism; Sjögren’s syndrome; Tongue Neoplasms - diagnosis; Tongue Neoplasms - metabolism; Tumors; Upper respiratory tract, upper alimentary tract, paranasal sinuses, salivary glands: diseases, semeiology; Periodontal disease; Disease diagnosis; Biomarkers; Sjögren’s syndrome; Oral squamous cell carcinoma; Saliva; Cancer; Immunopathology; Stomatology; Biological marker; Media; Autoimmune disease; ENT; Malignant tumor; Sjögren syndrome; Eye disease; Cancerology; Sjögren's syndrome; Systemic disease; Oral cavity disease; Diagnosis; Monitoring
• DOI: 10.1016/j.oraloncology.2012.01.021
• ISSN: 1368-8375; 1879-0593

Within the past 10years, the use of saliva as a diagnostic tool has gained considerable attention and become a well-accepted method. As a diagnostic fluid, saliva offers superiority over serum due to both a noninvasive collection method by specially trained persons and a cost-effective approach for screening of large populations. Collection of saliva offers a reduced risk of infection compared to the collection of serum. Moreover, obtaining saliva samples from infant, disabled or anxious patients, is much easier than obtaining other samples. There is a lot of useful components-changing information in saliva when a person is in sick. Therefore, we define these changing components as “biomarkers”. The utilization of biomarkers as early predictors for clinical disease not only contributes to the effective prevention and treatment of diseases, but also enhances the assessment of potential health risks. In this article, we have reviewed the properties of saliva, the salivary analysis method for biomarker discovery, and the diagnostic potentials of salivary biomarkers in monitoring and detecting periodontal disease, Oral and Breast cancers, and Sjögren’s syndrome. We also discussed some barriers of applications of saliva as a diagnostic media as well as recent improvements. We also prospected the future processing directions of using biomarkers in disease diagnosis and draw a conclusion that saliva is indeed an effective media in various disease monitoring and diagnosis.