Evaluation of Salivary Cotinine Level in Tobacco Chewers - A Case-Control Study

Aim and objective: To compare the salivary cotinine level in tobacco chewers and non chewers and to corelate cotinine level with the duration of tobacco chewing habit. Methodology: The study was conducted in 94 subjects, divided into two groups, control Group and study group, with 47 participants in each group. The salivary samples were collected from all the participants and cotinine concentration was measured using competitive Elisa method. Result: The mean salivary cotinine levels in group 1 and group 2 was 6.649 and 92.8040 respectively. When mean values were compared between the groups the values were found to be statistically highly significant, and study also showed there is no correlation between the salivary cotinine level and duration of the tobacco chewing habit. Conclusion: The result of our study showed the increased levels of cotinine in chewers as compared to non-chewers. No association was noted between cotinine levels and duration of chewing. Salivary cotinine level proved to be a useful biomarker of recent tobacco use and can be used in epidemiological studies and tobacco cessation programs.