Detecting Dementia by Saliva Analysis: A Fingerprinting Unobtrusive Method Based on a Fast and Cheap Sensor System

Recent studies have shown that oxidative stress plays a relevant role in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and in the pathogenesis of vascular dementia (VaD). New diagnostic methods look for biological samples with non-invasive sampling methods. Among these, saliva shows an increase in oxidative stress products, thus a corresponding reduction in antioxidant products were found in dementia cases compared to healthy controls. Compounds identified in saliva include some hydrocarbons whose production has been related to the presence of reactive oxygen species.

The hypothesis is that the voltammetric analysis performed on saliva could be a useful test for diagnosing dementia, potentially discriminating between AD and VaD.

A single-center observational study was conducted on patients referred to the dementia clinic in the Neurology area and healthy controls recruited in the Orthopedics area of the Campus Bio-Medico Hospital in Rome. The study was aimed at evaluating the discriminative properties of salivary voltammetric analysis between healthy subjects and patients with dementia and, as a secondary outcome, between AD and VaD. A total of 69 subjects were enrolled, including 29 healthy controls, 20 patients with AD, and 20 patients with VaD. The degree of cognitive impairment was classified on the basis of the Mini-Mental State Examination score.

The results obtained are promising, with an accuracy of 79.7%, a sensitivity of 82.5%, and a specificity of 75.8%, in the discrimination of dementia versus controls.

The methods tested demonstrate to be relevant in the discrimination between dementia and controls. A confirmatory study is already running.