Shaping the future of oral cancer diagnosis: advances in salivary proteomics

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Saliva has gained increasing attention in the quest for disease biomarkers. Because it is a biological fluid that can be collected is an easy, painless, and safe way, it has been increasingly studied for the identification of oral cancer biomarkers. This is particularly important because oral cancer is often diagnosed at late stages with a poor prognosis.

Areas covered

The review addresses the evolution of the experimental approaches used in salivary proteomics studies of oral cancer over the years and outlines advantages and pitfalls related to each one. In addition, examines the current landscape of oral cancer biomarker discovery and translation focusing on salivary proteomic studies. This discussion is based on an extensive literature search (PubMed, Scopus and Google Scholar).

Expert opinion

The introduction of mass spectrometry has revolutionized the study of salivary proteomics. In the future, the focus will be on refining existing methods and introducing powerful experimental techniques such as mass spectrometry with selected reaction monitoring, which, despite their effectiveness, are still underutilized due to their high cost. In addition, conducting studies with larger cohorts and establishing standardized protocols for salivary proteomics are key challenges that need to be addressed in the coming years.

KEYWORDS:

• Saliva
• proteome profiling
• head-and-neck cancer
• biomarkers
• mass spectrometry

Article highlights

• The establishment of harmonized protocols for consistent research results.

• Saliva is becoming increasingly important in medical research due to its simple, painless, and safe collection method.

• Saliva is a source of biomarkers for oral cavity cancer, a malignancy that has a high mortality rate when detected late.

• Early detection of oral cavity cancer can significantly improve prognosis and contribute to personalized treatment.

• A thorough overview of the improvements needed in study design for such research is provided.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest. All authors have read the journal’s authorship agreement and policy on disclosure of potential conflicts of interest.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14789450.2024.2343585

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), European Union, QREN, FEDER, and COMPETE for funding Institute of Biomedicine (iBiMED) (UIDB/04501/2020, POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007628), LAQV-REQUIMTE (UIDB/50006/2020), Instituto Português de Oncologia do Porto Francisco Gentil, EPE (CI-IPOP-134-2020), COST Action INTERCEPTOR and by an individual scholarship from Oriana Barros (University of Aveiro). All authors have read the journal’s authorship agreement and policy on disclosure of potential conflicts of interest.