Salivary cathelicidin LL-37 as a non-invasive biomarker for oral cancer detection.

Prospective cross-sectional study

“A prospective cross-sectional study was conducted involving 80 participants divided equally into four groups: OSCC, tobacco-associated OPMDs, non-tobacco-associated OPMDs and healthy controls (n = 20 each).”

Participants with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), tobacco-associated oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs), non-tobacco-associated OPMDs, and healthy controls

“Participants were divided into four groups: OSCC, tobacco- associated OPMDs, non-tobacco-associated OPMDs, and healthy controls.”

80 participants (20 per group)

“A total of 80 participants were included and divided equally into four groups: oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), tobacco-associated oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs), non-tobacco-associated OPMDs, and healthy controls.”

Salivary cathelicidin LL-37 levels increased progressively from healthy controls to OSCC cases.

“Mean salivary LL-37 levels demonstrated a progressive increase from healthy controls to patients with OSCC.”

Salivary LL-37 showed 100% sensitivity and 90% specificity for distinguishing pathological lesions from healthy individuals.

“Salivary cathelicidin LL-37 levels increased progressively from healthy controls to OSCC cases (p < 0.001) with 100% sensitivity and 90% specificity.”

Statistically significant differences in LL-37 levels were observed between all pairwise group comparisons.

“Post-hoc Tukey analysis (Table 3) demonstrated statistically significant differences between all pairwise group comparisons (p < 0.001).”

The study is cross-sectional and requires large-scale longitudinal studies for validation.

“Large-scale longitudinal studies are warranted to validate these findings and establish standardized clinical protocols.”