Assesment of Salivary Alpha-amylase Levels Before and After Ovulation: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Saliva is a readily available specimen, which can be collected by noninvasive procedures and contains many hormones, drugs and antibodies of interest in screening and diagnosis. With a salivary specimen, one can collect multiple specimens at the optimum times for diagnostic information. Saliva can be collected in remote sites by unskilled personnel and, is stable at ambient temperatures for several weeks. Because of diurnal and monthly variations, several steroid hormones need multiple samples collected early in the morning or late at night or at the same time every day for a month to give meaningful results. Such collections are often very expensive, inconvenient or impossible to do with blood.

Investigators aimed to investigate whether there is an association between ovulation and salivatory alpha amylase (sAA) activity in menstrual cycles during a month period in a group of reproductive women.