Salivaomics - A promising future in early diagnosis of dental diseases

Human saliva plays an important role in the health of the oral cavity and of the body as a whole. Salivary diagnostics is a dynamic and emerging fi eld in the diagnosis of oral and systemic diseases. Saliva refl ects the physiologic state of the body, including emotional, endocrinal, nutritional, and metabolic variations. The collection of saliva samples is noninvasive, safe, and inexpensive. Traditional clinical criteria are insuffi cient for determining sites of active disease, for monitoring the response to therapy, or for measuring the degree of susceptibility to future disease progression. Salivaomics includes fi ve diagnostic alphabets proteins, mRNAs, miRNAs, metabolic compounds, and microbes offering substantial advantages because disease states may be accompanied by detectable changes. Salivaomics, the future of saliva-based techniques for early diagnosis of dental diseases, is promising and may offer a robust alternative for clinicians to use in the near future to make clinical decisions.