Saliva Test for Oral Cancer Detection

Saliva Test for Oral Cancer Detection - Oral cancer is less well known. This raises the concern of some scientists in the United States because many patients are unaware of the symptoms but the next thing I knew died of it.

A surgeon at Michigan State University, Barry Wenig also pioneered the development of a saliva test by using a simple and inexpensive for the early detection of oral cancer.

Wenig is also a professor at the College of Human Medicine's Department of Surgery and the leader of this project in cooperation with Delta Dental of Michigan's Research and Data Institute to compile the data and recruit dental professionals that will assist in experiments conducted Wenig and his team.

The study will enroll 100-200 patients who have lesions (abnormal tissue) and white or a network that grows in the mouth and the tonsils to be tested as part of a clinical trial.

In this trial will Wenig and his team will look for biomarkers or specific biological markers that were previously identified by researchers at UCLA. This is to confirm the biomarkers of oral cancer.

By creating a test with a simple saliva and is able to identify the presence of biomarkers, physicians and dentists can find out which patients need treatment and which patients can avoid a biopsy (a test that involves the removal of cells or tissue for examination) unnecessary invasive.

"Most of the benign lesionnya that the majority of sufferers are actually even get unnecessary biopsies," Wenig said as quoted by Medindia on Wednesday (18/04/2012).

"Instead, a simple test will allow us to identify patients with malignant lesions and encourage patients to get treatment more quickly," he said.

Oral cancer has a low survival rate because of the slow early detection. Wenig was saying: Only 60 percent of patients who live more than five years after diagnosis. Even among black men, their survival rate is less than 38 percent.

"The main challenge for reducing mortality and morbidity of oral cancer is to develop strategies for the identification and detection of the disease while still at a very early stage," he said.

In addition to Delta Dental's Research and Data Institute to monitor the progress of this project, Wenig also collaborated with PeriRX, Pennsylvania-based company that will sponsor this experiment with the FDA.

"Our test is non-invasive because the patient just needs to spit in a cup. Ease of this test will also expand our ability to effectively scan for cancer lesions," Wenig said.

Wenig noted, "Now there is no early scan to detect the majority of cancers that occur in the head and neck so that this test could be a tremendous improvement."

In addition, this test has the potential to save health care costs because the number of biopsy can be reduced, he added.