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Diagnostic efficacy of saliva in oral and systemic health

  • review
  • Published:
international journal of stomatology & occlusion medicine

Abstract

Saliva has the potential to become a first-line diagnostic sample of choice owing to the advancements in detection technologies coupled with combinations of biomolecules with clinical relevance. Saliva is increasingly being used as an investigational aid in the diagnosis of oral and systemic diseases. It is a complex fluid containing a variety of enzymes, hormones, antibodies, antimicrobial constituents, and growth factors. Thus, saliva is functionally equivalent to serum, but its low concentration compared with serum levels in the blood may prevent salivary diagnostics from being clinically practical. However, with the development of new and highly sensitive techniques the low concentration of analytes in saliva is no longer a limitation. Evaluation of the secretions from individual salivary glands is useful for the detection of gland-specific pathology and whole saliva is used for the evaluation of systemic disorders. This review article highlights the diagnostic applications of saliva for systemic diseases and for monitoring of general health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Haldia Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, Haldia, West Bengal, India

    Tanya Khaitan

  2. Department of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, Haldia Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, Haldia, West Bengal, India

    Arpita Kabiraj

  3. Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Haldia Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, Haldia, West Bengal, India

    Preeti Tomar Bhattacharya

  4. Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Kamineni Institute of Dental Sciences, Narketpally, Andhra Pradesh, India

    Uday Ginjupally

  5. Haldia Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, Haldia, West Bengal, India

    Harshvardhan Jha

Authors
  1. Tanya Khaitan
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  2. Arpita Kabiraj
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  3. Preeti Tomar Bhattacharya
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  4. Uday Ginjupally
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  5. Harshvardhan Jha
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tanya Khaitan.

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Conflict of interest

T. Khaitan, A. Kabiraj, P.T. Bhattacharya, U. Ginjupally, and H. Jha state that there are no conflicts of interest.

The accompanying manuscript does not include studies on humans or animals.

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Khaitan, T., Kabiraj, A., Bhattacharya, P. et al. Diagnostic efficacy of saliva in oral and systemic health. J. Stomat. Occ. Med. 8, 83–86 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12548-015-0133-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12548-015-0133-7

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