Fast, economic, and noninvasive, molecular analysis of saliva has the potential to become a diagnostic tool of reference for several local and systemic diseases, oral cancer included. The diagnosis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC) can be performed using high specificity and sensibility biomarkers that can be encountered in the biological fluids. Recent advances in salivary proteomics have underlined the potential use of salivary biomarkers as early diagnosis screening tools for oral neoplasia. In this respect, over 100 salivary molecules have been described and proposed as oral cancer biomarkers, out of which cytokines are among the most promising. Besides being directly involved in inflammation and immune response, the role of salivary cytokines in tumor growth and progression linked them to the incidence of oral malignant lesions. This review summarizes the existing studies based on the use of salivary cytokines as potential oral cancer biomarkers, their involvement in the malignant process based on their type, and ther influence upon prognostic and metastatic rates.
Keywords: biomarkers; biomolecules; cytokines; early diagnosis; noninvasive collection; oral cancer; saliva; screening.