Gingivocrevicular transudate for HIV screening

Abstract

The use of saliva as an alternative biological fluid to serum in diagnosis or screening of infectious diseases by antibody detection has been the main subject of several articles in the last few years [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Saliva samples can be obtained simply, without specialized personnel, and the process is non-traumatic for the patient and economic and poses no contamination risks for health workers. For these reasons, saliva samples may be of great utility in underdeveloped nations, where there is a severe shortage of personnel and specialized equipment. Saliva is a mixture of the secretions produced by the salivary glands and gingival crevicular transudate (GCT). The use of GCT, which has a greater concentration of immunoglobulins (Ig) of the IgG type than does complete saliva [7], seems to improve detection of such Ig in the samples [8].