Background and Aim: Lichen planus (LP) is a cutaneous disease characterized by violaceus flat topped papules in variable size. It may involve body surface areas such as mocus membranes. Some studies have reported an association between oral LP ad diabetes mellitus. The aim of this study was to compare the frequency of diabetes mellitus between patients with and individuals without LP.
Methods: A case-control study was done on 30 patients suffering oral LP as case group and 60 healthy individuals as control group. Diagnosis of oral LP was confirmed by typical clinical and histopathologic findings. Participants in control group were selected from general population after matching for sex and age. Venipuncture was done to take 5 ml blood sample for measuring fasting serum blood glucose levels in both groups. A repeated blood sampling was done for ones with abnormal results in the first sampling. Findings of the study were analyzed using SPSS 16.0 statistical software.
Results: Thirty LP patients [man 13 (43.3%), woman 17 (56.7%)] with mean age (mean±stabdard deviation) of 46±13.7 years and 60 healthy individuals [man 26(43.3%), woman 34 (56.7%)] with mean ages of 46±14 years were recruited to this study. In case group only one person (3.3%) suffered from diabetes mellitus, but none of healthy group had fasting blood sugar above the normal value. In quantative evaluation, mean level of fasting blood sufar was 102.5±33 mg/dL in case group and 111.1±49.3 mg/dLin control group (P=0.09).