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If one UT researcher has his way, early breast cancer detection will one day happen in the dentist’s chair, during a routine oral screening. That’s the dream of saliva researcher Charles F. Streckfus, DDS, of The University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston.
The tissues of the salivary glands and the breast are very similar, explains Streckfus, professor in the Department of Diagnostic Sciences and one of a handful of salivary researchers around the globe looking for cancer markers in saliva. His research and clinical trials have resulted in a method for pinpointing breast cancer with a simple saliva sample. The test, not yet approved for marketing, would mean early treatment for women when the disease is most curable, he believes, and quickly would determine if the disease had returned after treatment.
“It’s pretty simple,” explains Streckfus, who has conducted saliva research at Johns Hopkins University and the National Institute of Craniofacial Research, among other places. “You just chew a piece of gum and spit into a cup. That’s it. This could be done by dentists as part of a routine oral exam.”
Streckfus got the inspiration to research breast cancer and saliva from an experiment at the National Cancer Institute in the 1980s. It’s well established “that mice have breast cancer a lot,” he says, which explains why cancer research is often done on mice. The NCI experiment involved removing the salivary glands from the mice, resulting in an 80 percent reduction in breast cancer.
“That’s what tipped me off,” says Streckfus.
But while he’s coming up with groundbreaking work on saliva and breast cancer, saliva research in general isn’t new. In recent years scientists have learned that saliva can reveal the presence of diseases and conditions that once were monitored only by analyzing blood, urine and other fluids. Streckfus says that one fellow researcher refers to saliva as “the mirror to the body. It can mimic what’s going on.”
Over the past 10 years, research such as that by Streckfus has led to new diagnostic tools and therapeutic options. Saliva is easy to collect and economical to transport and researchers now have the technology to detect salivary proteins which presents new opportunities for diagnosis and treatment of disease.
Technological advances allow for a wider range of measurement of molecular components in saliva and for comparison to blood and urine components. Micro organisms, chemicals and immunologic markers in saliva are now easier to study, no longer relegating its uses to oral health alone. It now has its place as a diagnostic tool for overall health.
The saliva test Streckfus developed for determining early breast cancer, for example, could also be set up “as a screening device in dental offices for a number of other types of cancers,” he says.
Meanwhile, though his saliva test for breast cancer has great potential, it wouldn’t replace the dreaded mammogram. “You still need to find out in which breast it (the malignancy) is located, and that’s where mammography helps,” he explains.
But for mammography to be fully effective in detecting very early cancers, it must be done more frequently, even every three months, according to one Harvard researcher, Streckfus reports.
The cost of four mammograms a year would be prohibitive, of course, not to mention the additional exposure to radiation and the test’s relative discomfort. A saliva test, on the other hand, would be painless and inexpensive.
A very important part of the whole idea, Streckfus adds, is the built-in appointment--“an intrastructure where patients see their dentists every six months. This is something the medical profession doesn’t have.”
So, how soon can we expect to see our dentists for breast cancer screening?
“I’m optimistic,” he says. “Conservatively, within 10 years. It’s all (a matter of) resources,” which is the big reason Streckfus came to UT-Houston.
“You have all the resources of the Texas Medical Center in one area, with the best equipment and technology in the country. This is where I need to be to complete this project. ”
UPDATED: 11-08-2006
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Dr. Charles Streckfus is a researcher at the UT Dental Branch.
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