Mental stress on saliva chromogranin A in dry mouth

[背景和目的]调查口干的确切原因对于治疗的成功非常重要。在口干的各种原因中，精神压力被认为是唾液分泌减少的原因，尽管这一理论仍在讨论中。近年来，唾液嗜铬粒蛋白A(CGA)被报道为一种新的精神应激标志物，它有助于敏感和非侵入性的测量。在这项研究中，我们测定了口干患者有限的唾液样本中的CGA。[方法]40例口干症患者(男6例，女34例，年龄52~81岁)和20例年龄、性别匹配的健康体检者。分别用唾液导管从双侧腮腺和口底表面同时采集唾液。收集的唾液立即被放入塑料容器并冷冻。CGA测量在另一家专门机构进行单盲评估。我们特意制作了一些仅含有0.20毫升生理盐水的模拟样本，并将它们混合在提供给实验室的唾液样本中。[结果]各地区采集的唾液非常有限，范围为0.05~0.40毫升。模拟标本的CGA测定值均在0.05pmol/ml以下，双侧腮腺CGA有较好的相关性，但腮腺与口底的CGA无相关性。健康人腮腺唾液CgA浓度低于1.02pmoL/ml，9例口干者唾液CgA浓度明显升高。[结论]口干症患者唾液CGA的测定，即使用有限的样本也是有意义的。此外，这些结果表明，精神压力和口干之间存在正相关关系。

[Background and Purpose] Investigating the exact cause of dry mouth should be important for successful treatment. Among various causes of dry mouth, mental stress is speculated to be a cause of decreasing saliva secretion, although this theory remains under discussion. Recently, saliva chromograninA (CgA) was reported as a new mental stress marker, which facilitated sensitive and non-invasive measurement. In this study, we measured CgA in a limited saliva sample from dry mouth patients. [Methods] We included 40 dry mouth patients (6 males and 34 females, 52-81 years old) and 20 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects. The saliva was simultaneously collected from the bilateral parotid gland and on the surface of oral floor by salivary catheter, and by stype, respectively. The collected saliva was immediately put in the plastic container and frozen. CgA measurement was performed at another specialized institution for single-blind evaluation. We intentionally created some imitation samples consisting of 0.20ml physiologic saline only and mixed these among the saliva samples supplied to the laboratory. [Results] The saliva collected from each region was very limited, ranging from 0.05 to 0.40ml. The CgA measurement of the imitation samples was below 0.05 pmol/ml. There was a good correlation between both parotid glands in CgA, but there was no correlation between the parotid gland and oral floor. The concentration of parotid saliva CgA in healthy subjects was less than 1.02 pmol/ml. There was a marked rise in parotid saliva CgA in 9 dry mouth patients. [Conclusion] The saliva CgA of dry mouth patients could be meaningfully measured even using a limited sample. Furthermore, these results suggest a positive association between mental stress and dry mouth.