• Régia Carla Medeiros da Silva, Liliane Cristina Nogueira Marinho, Davi Neto de Araújo Silva, Costa de Lima Kenio K Dentistry Department, Rio Grande Do Norte Federal University, Natal, RN, Brazil. Electronic address: limke@uol.com.br., Flavia Queiroz Pirih, and Ana Rafaela Luz de Aquino Martins.
• Dentistry Department, Rio Grande Do Norte Federal University, Natal, RN, Brazil. Electronic address: regia.carla20@gmail.com.
• Travel Med Infect Dis. 2020 Nov 1; 38: 101920.

BackgroundSalivary tests for the new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) diagnosis have been suggested as alternative methods for the nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal tests.MethodTwo reviewers independently performed a search in the following electronic databases: PubMed, Medline, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Embase and Scopus to identify cross-sectional and cohort studies that used saliva samples for SARS-CoV-2 detection. The search strategy was: ("saliva") and ("SARS-CoV-2" or "coronavirus" or "COVID-1").ResultsA total of 363 studies were identified and 39 were selected for review. Salivary samples for SARS-CoV-2 detection was as consistent and sensitive as the nasopharyngeal swabs in most studies, having been effective in detecting asymptomatic infections previously tested negative in nasopharyngeal samples. Viral nucleic acids found in saliva obtained from the duct of the salivary gland may indicate infection in that gland. Live viruses could be detected in saliva by viral culture.ConclusionsSalivary samples show great potential in SARS-CoV-2 detection and may be recommended as a simple and non-invasive alternative.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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