Comparison between saliva and gingival crevicular fluid as an index for liver function

The authors aim to develop an easy-to-handle noninvasive method for hepatic functional screening to be used in various diseases, which patients can use by themselves. In this experiment, we have simultaneously measured the activities of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) in saliva, gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) and serum samples collected from both normal subjects and hepatopathy patients. As a result, in all oral fluid samples as well as serum samples, the ALT activity of the hepatopathy patients showed higher values compared with the normal. Also it was found that threshold of ALT activity level in GCF between normal and hepatopathy patient was around 200 IU/L. Therefore, it is suggested that oral fluid might be used for a noninvasive and easy to handle hepatic screening test.