Molecular Biomarkers & Diagnosis

Early detection of ovarian cancer has been difficult in order to manage the high mortality rate caused by this deadly disease. The scientific contributions from around the world have helped to reduce mortality trends, but it remains the fifth leading cause of gynaecological mortality. The complexities in the clinical presentation, tumour origin, and gene expression profiles had added to the difficulty in understanding and diagnosing the disease. A stage 1 diagnosis of ovarian cancer increases the 5-year survival rate to around 92%. Cancer antigen-125 is the gold standard tumour marker found in abnormally high levels in the blood of many women with ovarian cancer. However, many non-cancerous conditions have high CA-125 levels, and several women have normal CA-125 levels in the early stages of ovarian cancer.

We wanted to see how accurate salivary matrix metalloproteinases (MMP)-8 and -9, as well as tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase (TIMP)-1, were at diagnosing periodontitis and differentiating periodontitis stages 1 to S3. This was a case-control study involving patients with periodontitis S1 to S3 and healthy periodontia. Saliva was collected, and clinical parameters such as plaque index, bleeding on probing, probing pocket depth, and clinical attachment level were recorded. Radiography was used to confirm the diagnosis by measuring the alveolar bone level. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to measure salivary biomarkers. A total of 45 patients and 18 healthy subjects served as controls.