Salivary Proteomics and Its Role in the Early Detection of Oral Cancer: A New Frontier in Noninvasive Diagnostics

Oral cancer, especially Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC), is a major worldwide health issue, exhibiting a high mortality rate due to late detection. Conventional methods of diagnosis are invasive and painful for the patient. Saliva can be used as an attractive, non invasive, and economical source of biomarker information, and salivary proteomics the large scale analysis of proteins in human saliva can be a promising platform for identifying potential protein biomarkers. This paper discusses the evolution of saliva as a diagnostic tool, identifies saliva proteins as potential oral cancer biomarkers, explores new technologies used to perform salivary proteomics, and examines the barriers that hinder the acceptance of salivary proteomics as a diagnostic tool for patients. Considering ongoing progress, salivary diagnostics can be expected to be a game changer for early cancer diagnosis and mediate personalized treatment concepts.