Journal of Dental Research, Vol 76, 1782-1786, Copyright © 1997 by International & American Associations for Dental Research Online Journals

ARTICLES

A novel system of human submandibular/sublingual saliva collection

A. Wolff, A. Begleiter and D. Moskona
Department of Oral Pathology and Oral Medicine, Maurice and Gabriela Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

The assessment of submandibular/sublingual (sm/sl) saliva is a procedure of increasing significance. However, the collection of these fluids by traditional techniques is difficult and therefore often neglected. To collect sm/sl saliva, we have assembled a novel, universal system consisting of four parts-collecting tubing, a buffering chamber, a storing tube, and a suction device. Submandibular/sublingual saliva samples were collected from ten healthy and ten xerostomic individuals. The system showed intra-examiner reproducibility of 0.92 for healthy and 0.89 for xerostomic subjects, and inter-examiner reproducibility of 0.93 for normal subjects and 0.80 for xerostomic individuals. The flow rates obtained by the present collecting set-up were similar to those measured by all known previous methods that were published during the last 40 years. The system was also efficient, in that more than 90% of the fluid that entered the system was eventually collected in the storing tube for analysis. The system appears to collect relatively pure sm/sl fluids, since contamination of the collected sample by a stimulant solution swabbed repeatedly over the tongue during saliva collection was minimal. The system is reliable, safe, practical, and comfortable for the patient.

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