ReviewThe Lancet. Microbe2023
The potential of saliva as an accessible and sensitive sample type for the detection of respiratory pathogens and host immunity.
Review in The Lancet. Microbe, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Temporal dynamics of human biomarkers of orthodontically-induced root resorption: A systematic review.Clinical oral investigations · 2026Pooled it
- Sustained salivary IgG but short-lived IgA responses following primary and booster MenACWY-TT vaccination in older adults.Human vaccines & immunotherapeutics · 2026Trial
- Evaluation of the diagnostic capacities of saliva sampling from pediatric patients: Protocol for a randomized intra-individual study.MethodsX · 2026Article
- Niche-specific immune and microbial signatures across the healthy upper respiratory tract mucosa.iScience · 2026Article
- Longitudinal analysis of viral and host RNA in blood and saliva during controlled human dengue virus 3 infections.Journal of virology · 2026Article
- Short-Term Within-Host Genomic Diversity and Clone Turnover of Carbapenem-ResistantAntibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Analysis Of Salivary Herpesviruses Reveals Associations Between HHV-6 And Long COVID Severity.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Identifying the optimal rapid antigen test for screening and determining the end of isolation: A modeling study.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Comparison of oral collection methods for 16S rRNA gene and shotgun metagenomic sequencing.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- Saliva as a Reliable and Non-invasive Sample for Detecting Influenza A in Severe Acute Respiratory Infection Cases.Cureus · 2026Article
- Characterisation of the gut-lung axis microbiome in clinically stable patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.EBioMedicine · 2026Observational
- Acute SARS-CoV-2 infection.Nature reviews. Disease primers · 2025Review
- Oral Fluid Sampling in Group-Housed Sows: Field Observations.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Development of a Raman-Based Method for the Diagnosis of People with Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome: The Role of Lactic Acid.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Research Priorities for Noninvasive Sampling of the Lower Respiratory Tract during Acute Respiratory Failure: An Official American Thoracic Society Workshop Report.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2025Article
- Storage stability of non-encapsulated pneumococci in saliva is dependent on null-capsule clade, with strains carryingMicrobiology (Reading, England) · 2025Article
- Saliva Has High Sensitivity and Specificity for Detecting SARS-CoV-2 Compared to Nasal Swabs but Exhibits Different Viral Dynamics from Days of Symptom Onset.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Rapid tuberculosis diagnosis from respiratory or blood samples by a low cost, portable lab-in-tube assay.Science translational medicine · 2025Article
- Comparing sputum, nasopharyngeal swabs, and combined samples for respiratory bacterial detection using multiplex PCR.Microbiology spectrum · 2025Article
- 4D-DIA Proteomics Uncovers New Insights into Host Salivary Response Following SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Infection.Journal of proteome research · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Despite its prominence in early scientific records, the usefulness of saliva as a respiratory specimen has been de-emphasised over the past century. However, due to its low cost and reliance on specific supply chains and the non-invasive nature of its collection, its benefits over swab-based specimens are again becoming increasingly recognised. These benefits were highlighted over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, where saliva emerged as a more practical, clinically non-inferior sample type for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 and saw numerous saliva-based diagnostic tests approved for clinical use. Looking forward, as saliva uniquely contains both respiratory secretions and immunological components, it has potentially wide applications, ranging from clinical diagnostics to post-vaccine disease burden and immunity surveillance. This Personal View seeks to summarise the existing evidence for the use of saliva in detecting respiratory pathogens, beyond SARS-CoV-2, as well as detailing methodological factors that can influence sample quality and thus, clinical utility.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.