Saliva Test May Spot Mouth Cancer Early

July 7 (HealthDay News) -- Oral cancer patients may have increased levels of certain bacteria in their saliva, new research has found, and detecting those bacteria may help diagnose the disease in its earlier and more curable stages.

"Many researchers are working on a saliva test for oral cancer," said Donna Mager, an assistant professor at the Forsyth Institute in Boston and lead author of the study, published online Wednesday in the Journal of Translational Medicine. She said her team's efforts are unique in that they are focusing on "bacteria that grow in the mouth as possible markers for oral cancer."

The research is already proving fruitful: Mager's group was able to predict with 80 percent accuracy which patients had oral cancer by examining three specific species of bacteria.

Other researchers, she said, "are looking at protein and genetic material that indicate that certain cancer-causing genes have been turned on. Or they are looking at inflammatory mediators or signs of inflammation that may indicate there is cancer present."

To detect specific bacteria, Mager's team first collected saliva samples from 45 people diagnosed with oral squamous cell cancer, and compared those samples to samples from 45 healthy individuals matched for age, gender and smoking status -- a risk factor for oral cancer.