title: Salivary biomarkers for periodontal disease diagnostics.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Periodontal disease is one of the most prevalent of all diseases. The chronic inflammatory process causes tooth loss and is associated with negative systemic effects. There are still major challenges when it comes to precise diagnosis, prognosis and appropriate disease therapy. The rapidly emerging field of salivary diagnostics could help to overcome these problems.
  
  
  METHODS
  The article covers the last 20 years of periodontal disease biomarker research and gives an overview of the current status of salivary diagnostic techniques.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The reader will gain insight into the periodontopathic process, associated biomarkers and biomarker detection techniques in the field of saliva-based molecular diagnostics.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Salivary diagnostics has great potential for the detection of oral and systemic diseases. Periodontal disease diagnostics, therapy and prognosis could benefit from this emerging diagnostic field.
authors.affiliation: University of California at Los Angeles School of Dentistry, Dental Research Institute, 73-017 CHS, Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA +1 310 206 3048 ; +1 310 825 7609 ; dtww@ucla.edu.
authors.forename: Ole
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Brinkmann
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: William V
authors.initials: WV
authors.lastname: Giannobile
authors.forename: David T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Wong