A Roadmap of Cancer: From the Historical Evidence to Recent Salivary Metabolites-based Nanobiosensor Diagnostic Devices

The etymology of the term cancer for a dysregulated balance of cell proliferation and cell death may be of the recent centenary. But the occurrence of cancer was reported at various periods in the history. Even though research towards a cure for cancer has received higher interest in various scientific domains due to its need for mankind, appropriate therapy for the complete cure of cancer is yet to be resolved by the research community. On this note, this review emphasizes on the brief overview of the historical beliefs on cancer occurrence, scientific mythology, and also discusses the recent scientific advancement in the diagnosis of cancer. The nanotechnological approaches for the diagnosis of cancer in ex-vivo conditions by means of the point of care devices are highly needed in recent years. This is for the reason that they have a high sensitivity to the biochemical interaction of the metabolites, low cost, and could be used for mass screening of the wide rural public, where the advanced imaging modalities are out of reach. Herein, we emphasize the importance of saliva as a mirror to the body’s health and using nanotechnology-based biosensors, various types of cancer could be diagnosed from salivary metabolites.