Method: 82 patients with gingival oral lichen planus were recruited to a 20-week, randomised, controlled trial. The personalised plaque control intervention comprised powered tooth brushing and interdental cleaning, control subjects continued with their normal oral hygiene routine. The primary outcome measure was OHRQoL using oral health impact profile (OHIP-49); secondary outcomes of were pain, plaque index (PI) and mucosal disease score (MDS). Comparison of clinical outcome measures across treatment groups was undertaken using ANOVA and Cohen’s d effect sizes.
Result: 77 patients completed the study with a mean age of 61.4 years ± 10.9; the ratio of females:males was 4:1. There were no significant differences between baseline scores between groups in OHIP-49, pain, PI or MDS (p>0.05). Both groups showed improvements in sum OHIP-49 scores; net improvement was significantly greater in the intervention group at week-4 (p=0.02) and week-20 (p=0.004). Those impacts that occurred ‘fairly often’ or ‘very often’ were significantly fewer, indicating improvement in OHRQoL in the intervention group at week-4 (p<0.05) and week-20 (p<0.05). Improvements in PI and MDS were significantly greater for the intervention group at 4- and 20-weeks (p<0.0001).
Conclusion: A personalised plaque control intervention is effective and should be considered within an overall treatment protocol for patients with gingival oral lichen planus.