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By Allison M. DiMatteo, BA, MPS
Scientific advances in biomarker research have led dentistry and medicine to consider saliva a viable diagnostic medium. The intricate composition of this body fluid, combined with emerging science designed to exploit its inherent capabilities, could potentially change dental practice, patient care, and usher in an age of individualized treatment protocol.
Part folklore and part scientific documentation, the history of saliva’s use as a tell-tale indicator of what’s taking place within the human body dates back centuries. In ancient China, an inability to swallow a handful of rice whole was a sign of guilt, since if an individual was nervous (as a result of lying, for example) and their salivary secretions dried up, they would be prohibited from making a food bolus. In the early 20th century, cytochemical tests of saliva were used to study such conditions as gout and rheumatism.
Much of the early work conducted in the saliva diagnostics field related more to an assessment of better understanding the composition of saliva and its function at the patient level in terms of supporting the ability to speak, lubricate, masticate, and function, as well as its effects on quality of life, explains William Giannobile, DDS, DMed.Sc,the Najjar Professor of Dentistry and Director of the Michigan Center for Oral Health Research at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. Within the field itself, what has really greatly benefited saliva diagnostics research has been the support and investment by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), specifically the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), that enabled a merging of many earlier technological advances in engineering and chemistry for the examination of the many properties of saliva, he says.
“Along the way, researchers began examining saliva in relation to various oral diseases, principally dental caries and periodontal disease, as well as non-local systemic conditions,” explains Lawrence Tabak, DDS, PhD, director of the NIDCR. “The use of saliva as a diagnostic medium has a very rich and long history.”For more details about the history of research and development of salivary diagnostics, see Salivary Diagnostics: The “Holy Grail” of Point-of-Care Diagnostics, page 126.
