Volume : 3, Issue : 5, May - 2014

The Use of Saliva in Medical Diagnostics

Katarzyna Van Damme Ostapowicz, Agnieszka Pedrycz, Dorota Kaczerska, Elzbieta Krajewska Kulak, Piotr Siermontowski, Krystyna Kowalczuk

Abstract :

For approximately 15 years saliva has been an important element of laboratory diagnostics. Scientists are still looking for modern ways to make use of it in medical diagnostics and the monitoring of therapeutic effects. Advantages associated with the use of saliva in medical diagnostics are multiple. Using saliva as a diagnostic material is non–invasive and painless, and convenient for professionally active adults, elderly patients and young children alike. Saliva may be the perfect diagnostic material and an alternative to routinely used serum, plasma and urine. It is one of the regularly produced biological secretions, containing numerous substances similarly to other fluids, e.g. blood and urine. It seems, however, that its practical use remains underestimated. The availability of saliva as a biological material, and its non–invasive collection method, makes assays of various salivary components increasingly important.