Sensitivity Analysis of a New Cancer Risk Assessment Tool That Evaluates Salivary Polyamines

A method to assess cancer risk through salivary-polyamine analysis (SalivaChecker®, SalivaTech Co., Ltd., Tsuruoka, Japan) has been developed. However, studies evaluating the utility of this test in patients with cancer are lacking. Therefore, we evaluated the sensitivity of the SalivaChecker® test in patients with confirmed cancer.

The SalivaChecker® test was performed in 66 patients with confirmed cancer. The risk of six types of cancer (lung, pancreatic, gastric, colorectal, breast (for women only), and oral cancers) was assessed.

The overall cancer detection rate, which is defined as the rate of detecting the risk for any cancer in the individual, was 68.2%. The detection rates according to the cancer site were as follows: lung cancer (13/14), pancreatic cancer (8/14), gastric cancer (4/6), colorectal cancer (12/17), breast cancer (3/8), and oral cancer (5/7). The overall cancer site detection rate, which was defined as correctly identifying the cancer site, was 28.8%. The detection rates for individual cancers were as follows: lung cancer (4/14), pancreatic cancer (7/14), gastric cancer (3/6), colorectal cancer (1/17), breast cancer (3/8), and oral cancer (1/7).

The sensitivity of the SalivaChecker® was 68.2%. Future studies should assess the specificity of this test in patients without cancer to further evaluate its utility.