Saliva evaluation of crack users

Abstract

Saliva is a transparent watery secretion secreted by the salivary glands directly into the oral cavity. Most of it (about 99%) is water and about 1% protein. These proteins and peptides can be characterized and analyzed to monitor or identify various diseases. The development of new protein separation techniques and different instrumental devices such as spectrometry offers a wide choice for carrying out proteomic studies. The purpose of this study is to analyze the saliva composition of crack users through vibrational spectroscopy. For this, two groups of participants from the Reference Center for Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs (CRATOD) will be selected by local professionals. Saliva samples will be collected for the convenience of 90 consecutively attended individuals who agree to participate in this study. Participants will compose 3 groups, consisting of 30 individuals who have been crack users for more than 30 days, with no visible clinical changes in the oral mucosa, a group of ex-crack users (ExC), and a group of non-crack users (Control), respecting the inclusion and exclusion discretion to participate in the research. The analysis will be done by vibrational spectroscopy with FT-Raman analysis, the FT-Raman spectrometer, MultiRaman model (Bruker Optics) will be used. Data will be submitted to statistical analysis using the computer program PRISM (GraphPad Inc., version 5.03, 2010) and R software (version 3.6.1). Descriptive statistics will consist of calculating means and standard deviations.(AU)