In-home saliva test detects cancer with 90% accuracy

An AI-based home screening test to detect oral and throat cancers from saliva samples is now available in the United States with the hope of transforming oral and throat cancer detection. Based on a technology approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a "breakthrough device," the saliva test can detect early symptoms of oral and throat cancer with more than 90 percent accuracy. Due to a lack of effective diagnostic tools, these cancers often go undiagnosed until they have reached an advanced stage, resulting in low survival rates. In a previous study, Maria Soledad Sosa from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso, now at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, discovered that the ability of cancer cells to remain dormant is controlled by a protein called NR2F1. This receptor protein can enter the cell nucleus and turn numerous genes on or off to activate a program that prevents the cancer cells from proliferating.