Salivary and serum metabolomics in oral leukoplakia and oral squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Oral squamous cell carcinoma is an important epithelial malignancy of newlineoral cavity with tobacco and alcohol being the primary risk factors. Despite newlineadequate understanding of its etiopathogenesis and molecular mechanisms, newlinethe disease is associated with poor survival rate and high morbidity. Much of newlinethe problems associated with OSCC could be attributed to lack of awareness newlinepertaining to its diagnosis at an early stage, failure to implement advanced newlinediagnostic strategies which can aid the microscopic examination of tumor newlinetissue and the delay in management. The tumor tissue undergoes newlineirreversible changes which are reflected at the molecular level and various newlinemethods such as genomics, proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics newlineare employed to study these changes. Metabolomics enables us to identify newlinenumerous metabolites by employing sensitive techniques like liquid newlinechromatography/ mass spectrometry (LCMS) in various body fluids even newlinewhen present in minute quantities. While serum is considered a standard newlinebody fluid as they reflect the pathological changes occurring in the body; newlinesalivary diagnostics have gained widespread attention owing to their newlineproximity to the lesion, non-invasive and easy method of collection. The need newlineof the study is to identify and analyse tumor related metabolites in saliva and newlineserum of oral leukoplakia and oral squamous cell carcinoma patients. The newlinestudy focusses on evaluating the tole of salivary and serum metabolomics in newlineoral leukoplakia and OSCC by employing a robust and sensitive technique to newlineidentify a range of metabolites that can have potential clinical implications as newlinea possible tumor biomarker. newline