A review on salivary constituents and their role in diagnostics.

ABSTRACT

Salivary secretions possess a number of biomarkers beneficial for the diagnosis of a plethora of oral and other systemic disorders. Therefore, it is of interest to analyse and discuss the significance of saliva and its constituents as a valuable tool in aiding diagnostics in clinical settings by reviewing available literature and controlled trials. Using the PRISMA framework, a thorough review of research that were listed in the PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane library databases was performed which revealed 212 papers, 54 of which were thoroughly evaluated. Exclusion and inclusion criteria were used to choose studies that were applicable for the review. The selected studies reported a number of diseases that were diagnosed using salivary constituents in the same way as other methods of diagnosis, with a number of benefits. Thus, data shows that saliva is an excellent source for biomarkers which can be used for furthering medical diagnosis like other diagnostic procedures.