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Insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective

Cerumen or earwax is an emerging bio-fluid in clinical diagnosis that has been very little exploited during the past decades in spite of its high diagnostic potential. It is highly abundant in diagnostic biomarkers such as genetic material, lipids, proteins, chemical elements, internal and external...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Shokry, Engy, Filho, Nelson Roberto Antoniosi
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5696747/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29180914
http://dx.doi.org/10.11613/BM.2017.030503
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author Shokry, Engy
Filho, Nelson Roberto Antoniosi
author_facet Shokry, Engy
Filho, Nelson Roberto Antoniosi
author_sort Shokry, Engy
collection PubMed
description Cerumen or earwax is an emerging bio-fluid in clinical diagnosis that has been very little exploited during the past decades in spite of its high diagnostic potential. It is highly abundant in diagnostic biomarkers such as genetic material, lipids, proteins, chemical elements, internal and external metabolites (e.g. hormones, volatile organic compounds, amino acids, xenobiotics etc.) reaching earwax from the blood circulation. Thus, it is able to reflect not only physiology, pathophysiology of the human body but can also detect recent and long term exposure to environmental pollutants, without the need of invasive blood tests and in the same time overcoming many disadvantages faced by using other diagnostic biological fluids. This review discusses the biology, functions, chemistry of earwax, past and current approaches for the study of its chemical composition, emphasizing how a detected variation in its composition can offer information of high clinical value, which can be useful in diagnosis of many diseases such as metabolic disorders and tumours as well as in forensic applications. It also presents details about techniques of sample collection, storage, and analysis. Moreover, it highlights concerns about the use of earwax for diagnostic purposes, which should be addressed to make earwax diagnostics a reality in the future.
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spelling pubmed-56967472017-11-27 Insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective Shokry, Engy Filho, Nelson Roberto Antoniosi Biochem Med (Zagreb) Reviews Cerumen or earwax is an emerging bio-fluid in clinical diagnosis that has been very little exploited during the past decades in spite of its high diagnostic potential. It is highly abundant in diagnostic biomarkers such as genetic material, lipids, proteins, chemical elements, internal and external metabolites (e.g. hormones, volatile organic compounds, amino acids, xenobiotics etc.) reaching earwax from the blood circulation. Thus, it is able to reflect not only physiology, pathophysiology of the human body but can also detect recent and long term exposure to environmental pollutants, without the need of invasive blood tests and in the same time overcoming many disadvantages faced by using other diagnostic biological fluids. This review discusses the biology, functions, chemistry of earwax, past and current approaches for the study of its chemical composition, emphasizing how a detected variation in its composition can offer information of high clinical value, which can be useful in diagnosis of many diseases such as metabolic disorders and tumours as well as in forensic applications. It also presents details about techniques of sample collection, storage, and analysis. Moreover, it highlights concerns about the use of earwax for diagnostic purposes, which should be addressed to make earwax diagnostics a reality in the future. Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine 2017-10-15 2017-10-15 /pmc/articles/PMC5696747/ /pubmed/29180914 http://dx.doi.org/10.11613/BM.2017.030503 Text en ©Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Reviews
Shokry, Engy
Filho, Nelson Roberto Antoniosi
Insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective
title Insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective
title_full Insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective
title_fullStr Insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective
title_full_unstemmed Insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective
title_short Insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective
title_sort insights into cerumen and application in diagnostics: past, present and future prospective
topic Reviews
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5696747/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29180914
http://dx.doi.org/10.11613/BM.2017.030503
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