Title

Ferritin as a predictive salivary marker for ECC-III

Authors

Kinjal Vekariya¹*, Shantanu Choudhari¹, Gadhiya Niraliben², Karishma Desai³, Shivani Shah² & Priya Amin²

Affiliation

¹Department of Pediatric Dentistry, Government Dental College and Hospital, Ahmedabad, India; ²Department of Dental Surgery, Government dental college and Hospital, Ahmedabad, India; ³Department of Dental Surgery, P.M.N.M. Dental College and Hospital, Karnataka, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Kinjal Vekariya - E-mail: kinjalkd9@gmail.com
Shantanu Choudhari - E-mail: shandent1@gmail.com

Gadhiya Niraliben - E-mail: niraligadhiya2024@gmail.com
Karishma Desai - E-mail: Krishupatel1212.kp@gmail.com
Shivani Shah - E-mail: shivani.shah11599@gmail.com
Priya Amin - E-mail: priyamin@uiowa.edu

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received October 1, 2025; Revised October 31, 2025; Accepted October 31, 2025, Published October 31, 2025

Abstract

Dental caries is a prevalent disease with a significant impact on children. Saliva, containing various organic and inorganic substances, may serve as a biomarker for identifying dental caries. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate the correlation between salivary ferritin levels and ECC-III in 60 children aged 4–5 years, divided into a caries-free control group and an ECC-III group (≥5 decayed, absent, or filled teeth). Salivary ferritin levels were measured using a diagnostic kit, and statistical analysis showed significantly higher levels in the ECC-III group compared to controls (p < 0.0001). Thus, we show salivary ferritin may serve as a simple, non-invasive biomarker for assessing severity and predicting progression of ECC.

Keywords

Early childhood caries (ECC), salivary ferritin, salivary biomarker, saliva

Citation

Vekariya et al. Bioinformation 21(10): 3876-3880 (2025)

Edited by

Hiroj Bagde

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.