Following oral surgery, there are sometimes disturbances in wound healing. It was the aim of this investigation to look for relationships between the composition of saliva and disturbed wound healing. Resting as well as stimulated fasting whole saliva was collected from 96 patients (19 to 53 years of age) prior to oral surgery. Flow rate, pH, standard bicarbonate, total buffer bases, peroxidase, lysozyme, thiocyanate, secretory immunoglobulin A, lactoferrin, total protein, tissue type plasminogen activator, and plasminogen activator inhibitor were determined. The salivary data of eight patients who suffered from disturbed wound healing were compared to the data of 20 randomly selected patients with normal wound healing. Patients with disturbed wound healing revealed increased activities and secretion rates for peroxidase in resting saliva. In stimulated saliva, decreased secretion rates for thiocyanate and total protein were found. Not a single salivary factor was able to discriminate both groups of patients with sufficient accuracy, but with a combination of tissue type plasminogen activator, peroxidase, plus secretory immunoglobulin A measurements from resting whole saliva a clearly improved and acceptable discrimination of the two patient groups was possible. A discriminant function including six salivary factors could be used to completely separate both groups.