Salivary cell-free DNA in head and neck cancer: emerging clinical applications and future perspectives.
Saliva may offer a richer source of tumor DNA than blood for head and neck cancers, with improving technology making this approach more practical.
This review systematically evaluates salivary cfDNA as a proximity-based liquid biopsy biomarker for head and neck cancer, noting that its closeness to primary tumor sites provides enriched tumor-derived signals compared to blood-based liquid biopsy. While current data are largely exploratory with heterogeneous methodologies and small cohorts, advances in high-sensitivity sequencing and bioinformatics are improving assay reproducibility and clinical translation potential.
What the study was
- Study design
- Narrative review
- Population
- Patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and related HNC subtypes
- Category
- Early Detection
- Maturity
- Exploratory
- Journal
- Oncology Reviews
Why it surfaced
Open-access review covering salivary cfDNA liquid biopsy in HNC; addresses a distinct proximity-based liquid biopsy modality complementary to blood-based ctDNA approaches.
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