Salivary biomarkers in cancer detection

Abstract

Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the USA. Its symptoms are often not specific and absent, until the tumors have already metastasized. Therefore, there is an urgent demand for developing rapid, highly accurate and noninvasive tools for cancer screening, early detection, diagnostics, staging and prognostics. Saliva as a multi-constituent oral fluid comprises secretions from the major and minor salivary glands, extensively supplied by blood. Molecules such as DNAs, RNAs, proteins, metabolites, and microbiota, present in blood, could be also found in saliva. Recently, salivary diagnostics has drawn significant attention for the detection of specific biomarkers, since the sample collection and processing are simple, cost-effective, and precise and do not cause patient discomfort. Here, we review recent salivary candidate biomarkers for systemic cancers by dividing them according to their origin into: genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and microbial types.