In the future, stomach cancer may be detected without gastroscopy — through saliva and stool tests. Scientists studied the microbiome of 317 patients and found that people with this disease had bacteria in their intestines that are usually found in the oral cavity much more often.
The researchers used machine learning methods to check whether the microbiome could distinguish patients with stomach cancer from people with chronic gastritis. The results were unexpectedly convincing. At the same time, saliva analysis turned out to be even more informative than stool analysis. This may mean that microbiome changes begin earlier in the oral cavity. That means a simple saliva sample could potentially become an early warning sign of a problem long before severe symptoms appear.
Today, the main way to diagnose stomach cancer remains gastroscopy — an effective but unpleasant, expensive procedure that requires equipment and specialists. In many regions of the world, the difficulty of endoscopy is what makes mass screening hard to carry out. Against this background, the idea of a non-invasive test looks especially important: giving a saliva sample is psychologically and technically much easier.
