RESEARCH ARTICLE
Salivary Markers for Oral Cancer Detection
Anastasios K. Markopoulos*, 1, Evangelia Z. Michailidou1, Georgios Tzimagiorgis2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 172
Last Page: 178
Publisher ID: TODENTJ-4-172
DOI: 10.2174/1874210601004010172
Article History:
Received Date: 28/3/2010Revision Received Date: 9/6/2010
Acceptance Date: 20/7/2010
Electronic publication date: 27/8/2010
Collection year: 2010

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Oral cancer refers to all malignancies that arise in the oral cavity, lips and pharynx, with 90% of all oral cancers being oral squamous cell carcinoma. Despite the recent treatment advances, oral cancer is reported as having one of the highest mortality ratios amongst other malignancies and this can much be attributed to the late diagnosis of the disease. Saliva has long been tested as a valuable tool for drug monitoring and the diagnosis systemic diseases among which oral cancer. The new emerging technologies in molecular biology have enabled the discovery of new molecular markers (DNA, RNA and protein markers) for oral cancer diagnosis and surveillance which are discussed in the current review.