THE VALUE OF SALIVARY BIOMARKERS IN ORAL CANCER DIAGNOSIS

Human saliva is not just the fluid of the oral cavity, it is considered to be the mirror of oral and systemic health. Oral pathology is a major public health problem, with a worldwide increase in incidence and morbidity. Diagnosis of the disease is a real challenge because of the lack of sensitive biomarkers and characteristics in serum or tissues. Salivary proteomic analysis is a direction for diagnosis and also for the treatment of various diseases and could be considered a new approach to cancer prevention strategy or other oral pathological conditions. Protein and nucleic acid molecules derived from oral tissues can be extracted from saliva. For diagnostic purposes, saliva offers serum benefits through non-invasive sampling as a valuable source of clinically relevant information because it contains specific biomarkers to the unique physiological aspects of oral disease as well as systemic pathology such as cancer, heart or infectious diseases.