Review Article
Maria Greabu, Bogdan Caleni
Abstract
During the past two decades, saliva has been investigated as an alternative diagnostic approach for several oral and systemic diseases. Due to its composition and functions, saliva could represent one of the most suitable biological mediums for clinical applications. As a diagnostic fluid, saliva offers distinctive advantages over serum and other body fluids and may provide a cost-effective approach for the screening of large populations. The key element of saliva-based diagnostics is its non-invasiveness. It is a well established fact that the balance of constituents in saliva indicates a healthy state while, the imbalance can be a sign of disease, due to exogenous or endogenous conditions. On the other hand, there is growing evidence that oral health/diseases are linked to systemic health/diseases. Inflammation, infection and oxidative stress are demonstrated to be the common pathogenic processes and each of them is mirrored in the salivary composition. The present review is focused on several key concepts: [i] advantages and limitations of salivary diagnosis; [ii] salivary biomarkers associated with oral and systemic diseases; [iii] salivary roles in early detection and progression of oral and systemic pathologies; [iv] saliva as a monitoring tool for oxidative stress in oral cavity.