Saliva as Diagnostic Medium to Detect Infectious Disease in Human Body: A Review

Abstract

Saliva is a oral biological fluid that has many benefits and has an function for maintaining oral health and can be clinically informative as a diagnostic media. Biomarkers in saliva are molecules that contain certain ingredients can be used to diagnose disease or assess the development and outcome of treatment. The characteristics of biomarkers make it feasible to be an alternative diagnostic media. The latest emerging technology has revealed medically that salivary biomarkers are important for detection many disease conditions such as cancer, viruses, bacteria, cardiac disease, autoimmune and metabolism disturbance. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of saliva as a diagnostic medium through its various biomarkers in saliva that can detect diseases caused by viral, bacterial and fungal infections in the body. This literature review of PubMed database was conducted without any limitation on date of publication to identify the potential of saliva as diagnostic medium of infectious diseases. Saliva has potential as medium diagnostic for ZIKA virus in the early week of symptom onset. High level of IgG can be detected in saliva of Helicobacter pylori bacterial infection in the body. Changes in salivary proteins such as calprotectin and histatin also have important diagnostic values in the detection of fungal infections. It can be concluded that saliva has potential as diagnostic medium that can be used in detecting various diseases caused by viral, bacterial and fungal infections.