TYPE Brief Research Report PUBLISHED 31 August 2022 DOI 10.3389/fped.2022.969372 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Tatiana Fidalgo, Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil REVIEWED BY Marcela Baraúna Magno, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Thais Manzano Parisotto, São Francisco University, Brazil *CORRESPONDENCE Ana Tomas ana.tomas@mf.uns.ac.rs SPECIALTY SECTION This article was submitted to Children and Health, a section of the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics RECEIVED 14 June 2022 ACCEPTED 02 August 2022 PUBLISHED 31 August 2022 CITATION Petrovi´ c B, Stilinovi´ c N, Tomas A, Koji´ c S and Stojanovi´ c GM (2022) Determination of salivary concentrations of leptin and adiponectin, ability to reduce ferric ions and total antioxidant capacity of saliva in patients with severe early childhood caries. Front. Pediatr. 10:969372. doi: 10.3389/fped.2022.969372 COPYRIGHT © 2022 Petrovi´ c, Stilinovi´ c, Tomas, Koji´ c and Stojanovi´ c. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Determination of salivary concentrations of leptin and adiponectin, ability to reduce ferric ions and total antioxidant capacity of saliva in patients with severe early childhood caries Bojan Petrovi´ c 1 , Nebojsa Stilinovi´ c 2 , Ana Tomas 2 *, Sanja Koji´ c 3 and Goran M. Stojanovi´ c 3 1 Department of Dental Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia, 2 Department of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Clinical Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia, 3 Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia Introduction: One of the most common oral diseases affecting children is early childhood caries (ECC). The link between oxidative stress and ECC has been proven in numerous clinical studies. Technical and biological variability were so high in most of the studies that none of the markers have yet been proven suitable for routine clinical use. This study aimed to evaluate the antioxidant status and the levels of leptin and adiponectin in saliva of children with severe early childhood caries (S-ECC). Methods: Morning unstimulated saliva samples were collected from children (n = 40, 0–6 years old) for the evaluation of oxidative stress which were measured by total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and by the ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays, as well as to assess the salivary levels of leptin and adiponectin. FRAP, TAC, leptin and adiponectin concentrations were evaluated in S-ECC group (n = 31) and caries free group CF (n = 9). All results were analyzed based on age and sex. Results: Overall median salivary leptin and adiponectin levels were 5.59 pg/mL and 24.86 ng/mL, respectively. Significantly lower leptin levels were observed in saliva of caries free children (4.66 pg/mL) than in the S-ECC group (6.64 pg/mL, p < 0.01). No significant difference was observed for adiponectin levels (S-ECC and CF, 25.31 and 23.2 ng/mL, respectively, p = 0.961). TAC and FRAP values of saliva had similar values in children with S-ECC and caries free children. TAC and FRAP values also remained stable with the age of the children, without significant differences with respect to sex. Frontiers in Pediatrics 01 frontiersin.org