The screening tool is not a diagnostic test. It assists oral health care providers with information during the oral examination, giving a real-time collagen breakdown reading. OralFitnessCheck measures the amount of the biomarker aMMP-8 in oral fluid. This fluid is a combination of gingival sulcular fluid and some saliva. The Oral Fitness Score also provides a measure by which the patient and clinician can understand the patient’s homecare compliance between appointments. Studies show that OralFitnessCheck Scores come down or return to normal after treatment, so this screening tool can monitor results following any treatment provided.

After collection, the sample is introduced into a lateral flow cassette (like a COVID or pregnancy test).

Then, the results are measured with an optical scanner, the ORALyzer, to give a numerical readout. This means that the OralFitnessCheck is like a blood test, where a numerical score is given for a collected sample. This is a change for us in dentistry, where we have been used to treating what we find on a clinical examination only and providing the patient with a verbal result of our findings! This contrasts with a physician who uses blood testing to understand disease activity and to share numeric information with the patient to verify the result.