ABSTRACT
Background: Stress is a non?specific response of the body to any demand. Professional education has a certain level of stress inherent in it. Dental students have been reported in the literature to experience more stress than medical students. Objective: To evaluate the stress levels of dental students: first?year undergraduates, house surgeons, and final?year postgraduates, using salivary cortisol as a stress biomarker. Materials and Methods: Dental students above 18 years of age and without any systemic illness were included in the study. Those students with a drug history of corticosteroids, anti?depressants, and oral contraceptives were excluded from the study. Female participants experiencing pre?menstrual symptoms, pregnancy, and familial stressor issues were excluded from the study. First?year undergraduates, house surgeons, and final?year postgraduates were enrolled in the study. Unstimulated whole saliva was collected in the morning and evening between 9:00 and 10:00 am and between 3:00 and 4:00 pm. Salivary cortisol levels were assessed by chemiluminescence immuno?assay (CLIA). Results: Paired sample t?test was used to compare the diurnal variation among morning and afternoon samples within the groups. The salivary cortisol levels were found to be significant within the groups. One?way ANOVA was used to compare the salivary cortisol levels between the groups. The salivary cortisol levels within the groups were not statistically significant. Conclusion: Salivary cortisol is a non?invasive biomarker of stress. Postgraduates had higher salivary cortisol levels than other study groups.
ABSTRACT
Oral cancer is one of the leading cause of cancer in India, new diagnostic modalities for early diagnosis and treatment will increase the survival of the patients. The present study was carried out with an aim to evaluate salivary levels of EGFR in oral cancer and pre-cancer as tumor marker. For this purpose an observational case-control study was carried out in which a total of 72 subjects were enrolled.Of these 24 (33.3%) were patients of premalignant oral lesions and 24 (33.3%) were patients of malignant oral lesions& 24 (33.3%) subjects were normal healthy controls. Demographic information and clinical data was obtained, estimation for EGFR was performed in saliva. In premalignant cases, buccal mucosa was the most common site involved (87.50%) whereas in malignant cases tongue was the most common site involved (n=10;41.67%). Mean salivary EGFR levels were higher in malignant cases (0.23±0.17 pg/ml) and low in controls (0.10±0.19 pg/ml). Mean EGFR levels in premalignant cases were 0.12±0.22 pg/ml. statistically, this difference was not significant (p=0.052). Statistically, no significant difference in mean EGFR levels among different TNM stages could be seen (p=0.145). EGFR levels showed a potential to discriminate between malignant and premalignanat cases but this difference was statistical insignificant due to lower sample size.