Oral cancer diagnosis
Oral cancer diagnosis. As recently reported in Clinical Cancer Research, researchers led by Dr. David Wong at UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center have identified a combination of four RNA biomarkers in saliva that can be analyzed to detect cancers of the mouth and throat. Although saliva contains the same biomarkers that are found in blood and urine, the concentrations are much lower in saliva, which has heretofore prevented its use in cancer diagnosis. Using saliva to detect cancer would provide
a cheaper and less-invasive method of diagnosis. The researchers are hopeful that their findings will lead to the ability to diagnose other types of cancer through saliva testing as well.
