Correlation of Clinical Severity of Oral Lichen Planus with Treatment Prognosis - A Retrospective Institution Based Study

Abstract

Lichen planus is a chronic mucocutaneous immunologically mediated disease which is triggered by varied etiological agents. Lichen planus shows many clinical features affecting the skin, oral cavity, genital organ, nail and scalp. Lichen planus has well documented clinical findings and histological findings that aid in diagnosis. This retrospective study was done to assess the clinical severity of Oral Lichen Planus (OLP) and compare it to the treatment prognosis of the patients visiting our institution. A total of 60 clinically diagnosed OLP patients were included. Clinical and treatment details were recorded and tabulated using Excel. The collected data were then analyzed by appropriate statistics using SPSS software. The results revealed 60% of the cases to be females with 58.3% accounting for the erosive type of lichen planus. 60% had involvement of bilateral buccal mucosa. Erosive variant showed eight months duration of treatment using systemic steroids. Within the limitations of the study, we observed that OLP accounts for nearly 28.4% of the OPMD reporting to the institution and females were found to be more commonly affected than males. Erosive lichen planus was the most common variant which exhibited maximum treatment duration. Hence, it is necessary to follow up the OLP patients regularly and to provide a precise treatment which prevents the remission of the disease in these patients.