The New Era of Salivaomics in Dentistry: Frontiers and Facts in the Early Diagnosis and Prevention of Oral Diseases and Cancer

Metabolites. 2022 Jul 12;12(7):638. doi: 10.3390/metabo12070638.

Abstract

Nowadays, with the development of new and highly sensitive, blood is not the only medium of choice for the diagnosis of several diseases and pathological conditions. Saliva is now considered a safe and non-invasive sample to study oral and systemic diseases, showing great diagnostic potential. According to several recent studies, saliva has emerged as an emerging biofluid for the early diagnosis of several diseases, indicated as a mirror of oral and systemic health and a valuable source of clinically relevant information. Indeed, several studies have observed that saliva is useful for detecting and diagnosing malignant tumours, human immunodeficiency virus, heart disease, and autoimmune diseases. The growing realisation that saliva is an inexhaustible source of information has led to the coining of the term 'Salivaomics', which includes five "omics" in connection with the main constituents of saliva: genome and epigenome, transcriptomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, proteomics and microbiota. All those may be changed by disease state, so they offer significant advantages in the early diagnosis and prognosis of oral diseases. The aim of the present review isto update and highlight the new frontiers of salivaomics in diagnosing and managing oral disorders, such as periodontitis, premalignant disorders, and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC).

Keywords: microbiome; oral disease; periodontitis; proteomics; saliva; salivaomics; salivary biomarkers.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

This research was funded by Funds of the Department of General Surgical Specialties, University of Catania, Italy.