Research and studies are ongoing using saliva and its constituent biomarkers to aid in early disease detection, the monitoring of its progression and the prediction of therapeutic outcomes. Salivary biomarkers for disease detection, such as oral and systemic, is showing promise where blood markers are still proving ineffective.
An example sited by Dr. Wong is in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. This is the most common, and also one of the most deadly forms of pancreatic cancer. His studies have shown that salivary diagnostics may be helpful in the fight against this form of pancreatic cancer.
In a study published in Gastroenterology, changes in the molecular signatures were found in the human saliva with an early stage pancreatic cancer. By analyzing the altered gene expression, biomarkers in saliva were found to be different between a patient with pancreatic cancer and one who did not have the disease.
One surprising finding is that various systemic diseases that were studied (pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, gastric cancer, ovarian cancer) have yielded highly discriminatory salivary biomarkers; particularly using their diagnostic tools. More studies are needed to confirm this early promise of using saliva samples, and its ease of obtaining samples, to identify diseases.
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