| Summary: | ABSTRACT The non-invasive collection and inexpensive nature of saliva has made it an attractive sample for use for diagnosis and research on several diseases. Storage circumstances may affect salivary component concentrations. The objective was to analyze calcium and phosphate stability in saliva samples stored at different conditions. Saliva of healthy people was stored and analyzed by spectrophotometry under different time and temperature conditions in order to evaluate calcium and phosphate stability. Calcium concentration was measured by Arsenazo III reaction at 600nm and phosphate by an acid-molybdate method at 650nm. Using Lin's concordance correlation coefficient (k), we observed very good agreement (k>0.8) for all samples frozen at -20 oC up to 50 days. Thaw/refreezing cycles can compromise phosphate stability even though there is good agreement (0.61<k<0.8). Because of higher variability for refrigerated samples, they are not the best storage method, although calcium and phosphate levels could be considered stable when the samples were stored at 4 oC for 7 days. Our results revealed that under different conditions, calcium and phosphate levels are stable in saliva samples, and that freezing at -20oC is the storage condition of choice, allowing to accumulate a higher number of samples before analysis, making it suitable for routine and research assays.
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