Written by Dentistry TodayThursday, 19 April 2012 12:57
A new saliva test may soon make the lives of many people much easier.
A Michigan State University surgeon is collaborating with a dental benefits firm on a trial that would perfect this oral cancer-detecting saliva test. It would make things much simpler for the tester and it would increase the effectiveness of the screening process, meaning more people would be accurately diagnosed with oral cancer and they would be diagnosed sooner in the process.
A professor in the College of Human Medicine Department of Surgery, Barry Wenig, and Delta Dental of Michigan Research and Data Institute will select 100 to 120 patients with white lesions or growths in their mouths to be part of the study.
The researchers will be looking to pinpoint the signs associated with oral cancer. If the saliva test was created, it would enable dentists and physicians to know which patients could avoid surgery.
This is so essential because only about 60 percent of oral cancer patients live more than five years after being diagnosed.
Wenig and the researchers recently worked with a team of UCLA colleagues, who are working on saliva tests for other forms of cancer. The whole key to the saliva test is that all the patient would have to do to generate a sample is spit in a cup—it doesn't get much easier than that.
A secondary benefit that would transpire if the test is successfully created is that healthcare costs could be lowered based on the fact that the number of biopsies would decrease.
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