# A point-of-care salivary cytokine test for early detection of oral cancer

> **NIH NIH R43** · GLUCOSENTIENT, INC. · 2023 · $269,000

## Abstract

Project Summary / Abstract
 Oral cancer is the 6th most common cancer globally with ~ 350,000 new cases and claiming ~ 180,000 lives
annually. Common risk factors include smoking and alcohol consumption. However, other local habits, such as
khat chewing, can cause significantly higher regional higher prevalence (up to 40% of all cancer cases in some
Asian countries). Currently, identification and diagnosis of oral cancer rely on visual inspection followed by biopsy
and histopathological analysis. This procedure is lengthy, costly and often prone to error. As a result, oral cancer
today is often diagnosed at advanced stages that have poor prognosis with a 5-year survival rate hovering around
50% for decades. Even for those who have been cured, they often face severe morbidities, such as disfigurement,
speech and swallowing difficulties. However, if oral cancer can be diagnosed early and allowing early intervention,
survival rate can improve to ~ 90%. Testing for salivary biomarkers represents a promising approach for
screening and diagnosing oral cancer earlier, since 1) saliva collection is convenient and can be performed even
at the dentist’s office, and 2) saliva is closest to the primary site of tumor development which can contain
molecules indicative of malignant transformation. Hence, with appropriate biomarkers, a simple saliva test can
be developed and deployed at the point-of-care (POC, e.g., dentist’s office) for rapid screening and early
identification of oral cancer.
 Recently, from a number of clinical studies globally, pro-inflammatory cytokines have emerged as promising
biomarkers for screening and diagnosing oral cancer with good sensitivity and specificity. Among these cytokines,
IL-6 and IL-8 have shown the best predictive power for oral cancer. Currently, measurement for IL-6 and IL-8,
as well as other cytokines, often require tedious manual assays or delicate automated systems which can be
both time consuming and costly. As a result, currently, it is impractical to screen for oral cancer via salivary
biomarkers at the POC. Based on need and clinical values, GlucoSentient (GSI) is proposing to develop a POC
system for screening oral cancer by measuring salivary levels of relevant pro-inflammatory cytokines. The POC
system will be based on the existing blood glucose meter (BGM) hardware and a disposable microfluidic cartridge.
Today’s BGM is the culmination of decades of R&D, designed POC simple operation, low cost and large-scale
production. Leveraging on the BGM technology, we can significantly reduce the time and cost associated with
device development and scale-up production. In this proposed Phase I project, we will demonstrate the feasibility
of a POC screening test for oral cancer by developing BGM based POC tests for IL-6 and IL-8 and validate their
performance in relevant specimen.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10760626
- **Project number:** 1R43DE033314-01
- **Recipient organization:** GLUCOSENTIENT, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Tian Lan
- **Activity code:** R43 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $269,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-08-17 → 2024-08-16

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10760626

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10760626, A point-of-care salivary cytokine test for early detection of oral cancer (1R43DE033314-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-28 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10760626. Licensed CC0.

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