Salivary biomarkers of hpa axis and an s activities.

Patacchioli, Francesca Romana

Endocrine biomarkers assessment in blood or plasma is often limited. Several substances also can be analysed in saliva and this technique offers some advantages. Saliva sampling can be done anytime, anywhere and multiple collection and assessment of samples during the day could offer a better understanding of daily production of the biomarkers of the endocrine and autonomic nervous systems. Salivary biomarker measures represent a reliable method of investigating hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis and autonomic nervous system activities, avoiding the stressful event of venipuncture and offering the possibility of self-collection by subjects. Salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase are commonly used for monitoring the human body's response in different physio-pathological conditions. The aim of this presentation is to encourage the use of salivary biomarkers assays in clinical practice and research and also to provide background information on some methodological factors that influence and add variance to biomarker outcome measurements. In fact, numerous methodological factors could influence human neuro-endocrine measurements and, consequently, can dramatically compromise the accuracy and validity of research. These factors can be categorized into those that are biologic and those that are procedural-analytic in nature. For example, traces of blood might interfere with the results of saliva testing. One major problem, the lack of compliance sometimes seen in outpatient saliva donors, requires strict standardization of both collection and analysis methods to achieve better comparability and assessment of published salivary hormone data. Such effort includes the development of specific and standardized analytical tools, the establishment of defined reference intervals, and implementation of round-robin trials.

BIOMARKERS; SALIVA analysis; AUTONOMIC nervous system

ORL.ro, 2016, Vol 9, Issue 31, p39

2067-6530

Academic Journal