Worth a Spit
An unusual tool emerges as a possible key to biopsy-free oral cancer diagnoses.
Saliva may hold the key to a biopsy-free oral cancer diagnosis, as researchers have isolated at least 50 microRNAs that point to early signs of malignant growths.
“It is a Holy Grail of cancer detection to be able to measure the presence of a cancer without a biopsy, so it is very appealing to think that we could detect a cancer-specific marker in a patient’s saliva,” says Dr. Jennifer Grandis, a professor of otolaryngology and pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Cancer Institute and a senior editor of Clinical Cancer Research.
Cells produce microRNAs to simultaneously control activity and assess behavior in genes. Doctors at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Dentistry have created a microRNA profile that represents a step forward in the search for a foolproof cancer predictor.
Dr. David T. Wong, a professor of oral biology and medicine at UCLA, and a team of colleagues measured microRNA levels in 50 patients with a type of oral cancer and in 50 healthy patients. They found that two specific microRNAs were present in much higher levels in the healthy patients.
“The oral cavity is a mirror to systemic health, and many diseases that develop in other parts of the body have an oral manifestation,” Dr. Wong says.
More research is necessary to confirm the findings of the study, Dr. Wong says.
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