Detection of Epstein‒Barr virus DNA methylation as tumor markers of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients in saliva, oropharyngeal swab, oral swab, and mouthwash
Zheng et al.
The finding, in our words
Epstein-Barr virus DNA methylation in self-collected saliva and oropharyngeal swabs demonstrated superior diagnostic performance for nasopharyngeal carcinoma compared with oral swabs or mouthwash. Combining both sample types and two promoter methylation markers could optimise decentralised, patient-centric screening programmes.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
A saliva-derived transcriptomic signature using support vector machine learning detected gastric cancer with an AUC of 0.87, sensitivity of 79% and specificity of 70%. Tissue-based gene expression models performed poorly when applied to saliva, indicating that saliva-specific biomarker panels are needed for effective non-invasive gastric cancer screening.
Profiling EBV DNA methylation in self-collected saliva distinguished nasopharyngeal carcinoma from controls with 90% sensitivity and 100% specificity by capture sequencing; a q-PCR assay targeting one CpG site achieved 78% sensitivity and 100% specificity. The methylation density fell after therapy and rose with recurrence, confirming that decentralised salivary screening can support both diagnosis and disease monitoring.
Zheng et al., International journal of cancer (paywalled) · source ↗
The study found that testing for ASCL1/LHX8 DNA methylation in at-home collected first-void urine can detect most cervical cancers and high-grade precancers, supporting a fully molecular screening pathway without a clinical visit.
Van Keer et al., Communications medicine · source ↗
This study used home self-collected saliva samples to successfully monitor cytokines and cortisol in mothers and infants, finding that a community singing intervention significantly reduced salivary interleukin-6 levels in mothers with postnatal depression.
Kirkpatrick et al., Brain, behavior, and immunity (paywalled) · source ↗
In people at high risk of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, saliva showed decreased EBV load and increased EBV DNA methylation compared with controls, and a stepwise strategy that adds saliva testing to serum EBV antibodies improved triage efficiency.