Electrochemical bioaffinity sensors for salivary biomarkers detection

Early detection is often the key to successful treatment and patient survival. The presence of various disease signaling salivary biomarkers that accurately reflect normal and disease states in humans as well as the sampling benefits and easy storage and transport of saliva compared to blood are some of the reasons for being increasingly recognized as an attractive diagnostic fluid. This explains the burgeoning research field in developing new methodologies able to determine low concentrations of different levels of biomarkers in saliva in a simple and rapid way. Aiming at overcoming some limitations of conventional strategies, electrochemical affinity biosensors have demonstrated to offer interesting alternatives for salivary diagnostics. This paper reviews briefly the significance of saliva and salivary biomarkers for clinical diagnosis and therapeutic applications, and highlights recent advances, main challenges and future prospects in sensing bioaffinity platforms developed for the single or multiplexed determination of salivary biomarkers.