Aro Katri, Wei Fang, Wong David T, Tu Michael
School of Dentistry, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Front Public Health. 2017 Apr 11;5:77. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2017.00077. eCollection 2017.
Saliva is a non-invasive biofluid, which is easy to collect, transport, and store. Because of its accessibility and connection to systemic diseases, saliva is one of the best candidates for the advancement of point-of-care medicine, where individuals are able to easily monitor their health status by using portable convenient tools such as smartphones. There are a variety of scenarios with which saliva can be used: studies have been conducted on using saliva to measure stress hormones, enzyme levels, developmental disease biomarkers, and even cancer mutations. If validated biomarkers were combined with high-quality detection tools, saliva would open up a new frontier in high-quality healthcare, allowing physicians and patients to work together for real-time health monitoring and high-impact personalized preventative medicine. One of the most exciting emerging frontiers of saliva is liquid biopsy, which is a non-invasive means to assess the presence and characteristics of cancer in a patient. This article will review current basic knowledge of biomarkers, review their relation to different diseases and conditions, and explore liquid biopsy for point-of-care applications.
唾液是一种非侵入性生物流体，易于采集、运输和储存。由于其易获取性以及与全身性疾病的关联，唾液是即时医疗发展的最佳候选对象之一，在即时医疗中，个人能够通过使用智能手机等便捷的便携式工具轻松监测自身健康状况。唾液有多种应用场景：已经开展了利用唾液测量应激激素、酶水平、发育性疾病生物标志物甚至癌症突变的研究。如果经过验证的生物标志物与高质量检测工具相结合，唾液将开创高质量医疗保健的新领域，使医生和患者能够共同进行实时健康监测和具有重大影响的个性化预防医学。唾液最令人兴奋的新兴领域之一是液体活检，这是一种评估患者体内癌症存在情况和特征的非侵入性手段。本文将回顾生物标志物的当前基础知识，审视它们与不同疾病和病症的关系，并探索用于即时医疗应用的液体活检。
