Musalem-Dominguez O, Montiel-Company J M, Ausina-Márquez V, Morales-Tatay J M, Almerich-Silla J M. Salivary metabolomic profile associated with cariogenic risk in children. J Dent 2023; 136: 104645.

A system not yet ready for clinical use.

Changes in the metabolic activity in the oral microbiome have been noted in individuals with active dental caries. Metabolimic profiles from whole saliva can be identified and quantified using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). NMR has the advantages of excellent reproducibility and being highly automatable. Sample preparation is simple although relatively large sample size is required.

At two paediatric dental units in Spain, unstimulated saliva was collected from 31 children, aged 7-10 years, diagnosed with ICDAS codes lll, IV and V (the case group) and 37 children of similar age with ICDAS codes I and II (the control group). Higher levels of taurine and mannose were found in the case group and higher levels of glycine and glucose in the controls. Glycine may have a protective role in reducing caries risk. The presence of taurine may be a biomarker for caries.

The predictive capacity of the model developed is described as moderate (AUC = 0.71).