For many years saliva has been used as a biological fluid for the detection of different biomarkers such as electrolytes, hormones, drugs and antibodies in human and veterinary medicine. Sample collection is non-invasive, painless and very convenient especially for the patients. Collecting saliva samples is possible any time, day or night because of the overall convenience of collection. Saliva
collection can be accomplished under circumstances where blood collection is difficult or inadvisable.
Saliva is the specimen of choice in a variety of the subsets of traditional medical care as well as emerging areas of health measurement and monitoring. With the ability to evaluate a pooled saliva sample from multiple collections it is possible to get a reliable assessment of hormone concentration even if distinct diurnal fluctuations occur.
Steroid hormone assessment from saliva also allows the specific determination of biologically active or “free” fraction of target hormone. Assays for salivary steroid determination must be extremely sensitive as the concentrations of biologically active, free fractions are significantly lower than
the concentrations of total analyte in serum. The required sensitivity can be achieved with chemiluminescence, a technology used in the saliva assays from IBL-International.
Clinical Applications for salivary hormone testing
- Endocrinology – e.g. Cushing Syndrome
- Gynaecology
- Neuroendocrinology
- Psychology
- Paediatrics
- Occupational Health – e.g. Outcome of Burn-out syndrome
- Sports Medicine - e.g. Quantification of physiological stress
- Pharmacology - e.g. Hormone replacement therapy (HRT)
- Wellness
- Anti-aging Medicine
- Veterinary Medicine
- Research
|