Salivary diagnostics for oral cancer

Oral cancers annually strike 38,000 individuals in the United States and hundreds of thousands of others around the globe. Despite treatment advances, the disease's overall five-year survival rate has not improved in the past three decades and remains among the worst of all cancers. One factor behind oral cancer's high mortality is the challenge detecting it at its early stages. The use of saliva for the detection of oral cancer has been a historical goal that has yet to come to fruition. This review highlights translational research efforts in alignment with initiatives sparked by the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research toward bringing saliva diagnostics to fruition and, in particular, for saliva-based oral cancer detection.