Saliva, a bodily fluid with recognized and potential diagnostic applications.

Human whole saliva is a bodily fluid that can be obtained easily by noninvasive techniques. Specimens can be collected by the patient also at home in order to monitor healthy status and variations of several analytes of clinical interest. The contributions to whole saliva include secretions from salivary glands and, among others, from the gingival crevicular fluid which derives from the epithelial mucosa. Therefore, saliva is currently a relevant diagnostic fluid for many substances, including steroids, non-peptide hormones, therapeutic drugs and drugs of abuse. This review at first briefly describes the different contributions to whole saliva. A section illustrates the procedures for the collection, the handling and the storage of salivary specimens. Another section describes the present use of whole saliva for diagnostic purposes and its specific utilization for the diagnosis of several local and systemic diseases. The final sections illustrate the future opportunities offered by various not conventional techniques with a focus on the most recent -omic investigations. It describes the various issues which have to be taken into account to avoid false positive and negative, such as the strength of the experimental plan, the adequacy of the number of samples under study and the proper choice of controls. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.