Chapter 22 - Saliva as an emerging biofluid for clinical diagnosis and applications of MEMS/NEMS in salivary diagnostics

Abstract

Saliva as a diagnostic fluid is gaining wider acceptance for diagnosing diseases. The growing interest in saliva as a biological fluid is due to its noninvasiveness, easy-to-do, cost-effective, and multiple sample collection possibilities, as well as minimal risk to healthcare professionals of contracting infectious organisms such as human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis B. However, the clinical translation of saliva is hampered by our lack of understanding of the biomolecular transportation from blood into saliva, the diurnal variations of biomolecules present in saliva and relatively low levels of analytes (100–1000-fold less than in blood). We provide information on the current status of salivary research, salivary diagnostics empowered by nanotechnology, and future prospects in this emerging field of saliva diagnostics.