Salivary IgA as a potential biomarker for early childhood caries detection

• Main Author: Mustafa Al-Ahmad, Basma Ezzat
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: RK Dentistry
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/105056/1/105056_Salivary%20IgA%20as%20a%20potential%20biomarker.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/105056/
• Institution: Universiti Islam Antarabangsa Malaysia

Early Childhood Caries (ECC) prevalence was reported quite high in many countries including Malaysia. Dental caries is a predominant oral disease that results from chronic exposure to the disparity of numerous factors. Saliva is the most significant essential factor of dental caries, which provides physical and biological defensive mechanisms. The humoral immunologic response can regulate caries, especially salivary secretory immunoglobulin A (s-IgA) which has immunological control over dental caries and presumably prevents the adherence of cariogenic microorganisms to the hard surfaces in addition to the inhibition of the activity of glucosyl transferases. There is an association between caries and increased levels of sIgA, which may be due to many reasons like the response to the mild exposition of dental caries as a form of a protective mechanism of the body against caries attack, which will stimulate the production of sIgA that plays a role in oral homeostasis. Still, the relationship between sIgA and dental caries is controversial and needs further investigation.