A saliva-testing examination tool is used by the dental team to educate patients, inform preventive treatment planning, and assist with proper selection of dental materials to initiate changes in the patient’s oral hygiene. Dental teams measure saliva pH with test strips—the litmus paper we used even as kids in school. It is simply a strip of colored paper that, when soaked in sample saliva, turns a different color depending on the pH level. The color scale ranges from red (indicating a strong acidic state [pH < 3]) to dark blue or purple (indicating a strong alkaline state [pH > 11]).
The free iPhone or Android app developed by Dr. Hashemian’s team is designed to capture the pH value for a patient. The app can manually set the value, or you can take a picture of a test strip and auto-calculate the pH using color-coding analysis. Once set, the app will allow you to save the data and track improvements to oral pH over time.9
With improvements in immunology, microbiology, and biochemistry, salivary testing—in both research and clinical settings—may prove to be an applied and reliable means of recognizing oral signs of systemic illness and exposure to risk factors.10 Salivary diagnostics will be the next great breakthrough in improving the general health of the public. Stay tuned.
What are your thoughts about how “spit” could be applied clinically? Contact me at PAEditor@frontlinemedcom.com.
REFERENCES
1. Personal communication. February 17, 2015.
2. Walker AK. Researchers eye saliva for patient testing. Baltimore Sun. May 23, 2012.
3. Devi TJ. Saliva: a potential diagnostic tool. J Dental Med Sci. 2014;13(2):52-57.
4. Giannobile WV, Beikler T, Kinney JS, et al. Saliva as a diagnostic tool for periodontal disease: current state and future directions. Periodontol 2000. 2009;50:52-64.
5. Gopinath VK, Arzreanne AR. Saliva as a diagnostic tool for assessment of dental caries. Arch Orofacial Sci. 2006;1:57-59.
6. Streckfus CF, Bigler LR. Salivary glands and saliva: saliva as a diagnostic fluid. Oral Dis. 2002;8:69-76.
7. Lee JM, Garon E, Wong DR. Salivary diagnostics. Orthod Cranioffac Res. 2009;12:206211.
8. Cornelius K. Spit, polished. Phoenix Magazine. November 2014; 38.
9. AT Still University, Arizona School of Dentistry and Oral Health. pH2OH. www.ph2oh.com/apps/. Accessed March 21, 2015.
10. Lawrence HP. Salivary markers of systemic disease: noninvasive diagnosis of disease and monitoring of general health. J Can Dent Assoc. 2002;68(3):170-174.