A salivary biomarker panel to detect liver cirrhosis

Lucas Trevisan França de Lima; Darrell H G Crawford; Daniel A Broszczak; Xi Zhang; Kim Bridle R; Chamindie Punyadeera

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.107015

A salivary biomarker panel to detect liver cirrhosis

iScience. 2023 Jun 5;26(7):107015. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107015. eCollection 2023 Jul 21.

Authors

Lucas Trevisan França de Lima^{1

2}, Darrell H G Crawford^{2

3}, Daniel A Broszczak⁴, Xi Zhang¹, Kim Bridle R^{2

3}, Chamindie Punyadeera^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ The School of Environment and Science, Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery (GRIDD), Griffith University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
² Gallipoli Medical Research Foundation, Greenslopes Private Hospital, Greenslopes, QLD, Australia.
³ The University of Queensland, Faculty of Medicine, Herston, QLD, Australia.
⁴ School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Health, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove Campus, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
⁵ Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MIHQ), Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia.

Abstract

Limited access to diagnostic tests for liver fibrosis remains one of the main reasons for late diagnosis, especially in rural and remote communities. Saliva diagnostics is accessible with excellent patient compliance. The aim of this study was to develop a saliva-based diagnostic tool for liver fibrosis/cirrhosis. Salivary concentrations of hyaluronic acid (HA), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1), and α-2-macroglobulin (A2MG) were significantly increased (p < 0.05) in patients with liver fibrosis/cirrhosis. By combining these biomarkers, we developed the Saliva Liver Fibrosis (SALF) score, which identified patients with liver cirrhosis with an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) of 0.970 and 0.920 in a discovery and validation cohorts, respectively. The SALF score had a performance that was similar to that of the current Fibrosis-4 (AUROC:0.740) and Hepascore (AUROC:0.979). We demonstrated the clinical utility of saliva to diagnose liver fibrosis/cirrhosis with a potential to improve the screening for cirrhosis in asymptomatic populations.

Keywords: Diagnostics; Gastroenterology; Health sciences.