An American company has developed a “saliva diagnostic” sensor so microscopic in size that it can be positioned on a tooth. A major challenge to further improve medical diagnostics of all kinds.
If it is often synonymous with spitting or even insulting, saliva is nevertheless an essential element of our body and could allow in the future to carry out various medical examinations, in the same way as with blood tests. Saliva can indeed be an effective tool for detecting oral diseases but also much more serious diseases such as cancer or Alzheimer’s disease.
And it is in this sense that the American company Lura Health, manufacturers of medical devices, has developed a “salivary diagnostic” sensor. Presented in the form of a microscopic chip, the tool could soon be placed on molars all over the world in order to constantly monitor users’ saliva, and therefore their health.
“Saliva is an amazing diagnostic fluid and is used to test for over 1000 health conditions. Medical professionals even refer to saliva as the new blood of health diagnostics,” Lura Health even says. on its website.
Waiting for validation
Equipped with a battery and a Bluetooth system, the chip could even allow users to analyze their health in real time thanks to the data sent by the device. Alerts can also be sent in the event of a worrying health problem.
Lura Health thus boasts of having solved one of the real challenges of this type of tool: the lifespan. Often equipped with a battery that cannot last over time, the devices developed until then could not be used efficiently.
But before seeing these chips land on the teeth, Lura Health will have to pass the obstacle of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the American authority responsible for clinical trials. The company says it has completed testing with the University of Connecticut, an academic medical center. The tests with the FDA should take place in the coming months with, in the perspective, a marketing within 12 to 18 months.
