Saliva as a Diagnostic aid in Periodontics

In the field of periodontal diagnosis, there has been a steady growing trend during the last 2 decades to develop tools to monitor periodontitis. Currently, diagnosis of periodontal disease relies is primarily on clinical and radiographic parameters. These measures are useful in detecting evidence of past disease, or verifying periodontal health, but provide only limited information about patients and sites at risk for future periodontal breakdown. Saliva, because of its locality, represents a key and very relevant diagnostic fluid for periodontal disease. Many important biological substances including electrolytes, drugs, proteins (e.g, cytokines, hormones and enzymes), antibodies, microbes, and RNAs have been identified in saliva. Estimation of the risk of disease onset and severity, monitoring of disease progression and evaluation of therapeutic efficacy for premalignant and malignant oropharyngeal lesions as well as infectious diseases of the oral cavity can be performed by analyzing an array of constituents within saliva. In this review, an attempt has been made to review the role of saliva as a diagnostic tool in periodontics.