Differential diagnosis of lung cancer and benign lung lesion using salivary metabolites: A preliminary study

Abstract

Background Saliva is often used as a biomarker for the diagnosis of some oral and systematic diseases, owing to the non‐invasive attribute of the fluid. In this study, we aimed to identify salivary biomarkers for distinguishing lung cancer (LC) from benign lung lesion (BLL). Materials and Methods Unstimulated saliva samples were collected from 41 patients with LC and 21 with BLL. Salivary metabolites were comprehensively analyzed using capillary electrophoresis mass spectrometry. To differentiate between patients with LCs and BLLs, the discriminatory ability of each biomarker was assessed. Furthermore, a multiple logistic regression (MLR) model was developed for evaluating discriminatory ability of each salivary metabolite. Results The profiles of 10 salivary metabolites were remarkably different between the LC and BLL samples. Among them, the concentration of salivary tryptophan was significantly lower in the samples from patients with LC than in those from patients with BLL, and the area under the curve (AUC) for discriminating patients with LC from those with BLL was 0.663 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.516–0.810, p = 0.036). Furthermore, from the MLR model developed using these metabolites, diethanolamine, cytosine, lysine, and tyrosine, were selected using the back‐selection regression method. The MLR model based on these four metabolites had a high discriminatory ability for patients with LC and those with BLL (AUC = 0.729, 95% CI = 0.598–0.861, p = 0.003). Conclusion The four salivary metabolites can serve as potential non‐invasive biomarkers for distinguishing LC from BLL.

Label-Free SERS Salivary Biosensor Based on Ni@Ag Core–Shell Nanoparticles Anchored on Carbon Nanofibers for Prediagnosis of Lung Cancer

“…As the degree of damage to the lymph node lesion rises, the level of imidazole compounds also increases. Thus, the level of imidazole compounds in saliva can be used as an important biomarker for lung cancer detection. ,− …”

Updates and Original Case Studies Focused on the NMR-Linked Metabolomics Analysis of Human Oral Fluids Part III: Implementations for the Diagnosis of Non-Cancerous Disorders, Both Oral and Systemic

“…Besides oral diseases, e.g., [ 130 ], salivary analysis also has a high level of potential applications for the diagnostics of various systemic diseases such as Sjörgen’s syndrome [ 65 , 66 ], as well as distant malignancies, such as breast cancer [ 131 ] and its recurrence [ 132 ], lung cancer [ 133 , 134 ] and prostate cancer [ 135 ] (recent developments in the diagnosis and prognostic monitoring of cancers are fully outlined and reviewed in Ref. [ 2 ]).…”

Salivary Metabolomics for Systemic Cancer Diagnosis: A Systematic Review

“…The preliminary study by Takamori et al [ 52 ] identified salivary metabolites for distinguishing lung cancer (LC) from benign lung lesions (BLL). Among ten different salivary metabolites, only tryptophan concentrations were significantly decreased in LC patients compared with BLL patients.…”

“… Quality assessment, including the main potential risk of bias (risk level: green—low, yellow—unspecified, red—high; quality score: green—good, yellow—intermediate, red—poor) [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 ]. …”