title: Elevated salivary endothelin levels in oral cancer patients--a pilot study.
abstract: The analysis of saliva has been proposed as a potentially rapid, non-invasive method to monitor and diagnose patients with oral disease. In this study we measured salivary endothelin-1 (ET-1) levels in patients diagnosed with oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) prior to treatment. We demonstrate significantly elevated salivary ET-1 levels in the oral SCC group (4.37+/-1.35pg/ml), relative to the control group (1.16+/-0.29pg/ml). ET-1 and ET-1 mRNA were also measured in oral SCC tissue specimens and compared to normal oral epithelial controls. The concentration of ET-1 in the oral SCC specimens was 17.87+/-4.0pg/ml and in the normal epithelial controls the concentration of ET-1 was 5.43+/-2.5pg/ml. ET-1 mRNA was significantly overexpressed in 80% (8/10) of the oral SCC specimens. Our results demonstrate the potential utility of salivary analysis for ET-1 levels to monitor patients at risk for oral SCC.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University of California San Francisco, 521 Parnassus Avenue, C-522, Box 0440, San Francisco, CA 94143-0440, United States.
authors.forename: Victoria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pickering
authors.forename: Richard C K
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Jordan
authors.forename: Brian L
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Schmidt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000032:analysis*; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism; D019332:Endothelin-1 / Q000032:analysis*; D004797:Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D007972:Leukoplakia, Oral / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009062:Mouth Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000378:metabolism; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012463:Saliva / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D019332:Endothelin-1; D012333:RNA, Messenger