Treatment of Lichen Planus Using Oleozone and Triamcinolone Acetonide Gel

Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate and compare the clinical and immunohistochemical effects of oleozone and triamcinolone acetonide gel in the treatment of atrophic/erosive oral lichen planus in medically compromised patients.

Methods: Twenty medically compromised patients with symptomatic atrophic/erosive oral lichen planus were included in this study. The patients were randomly divided into two groups, ten patients each. Group I was treated with oleozone gel and Group II was treated with 0.1 % triamcinolone acetonide gel. The patients were evaluated clinically by the pain score according to visual analog scale (VAS) and immunohistochemically by serum tumor necrosis alpha (TNFα) at baseline (before treatment), 1 month and 3 months post-treatment. The collected data were statistically analyzed using the t-tests at 95% confidence level.
Results: The clinical results showed statistically significant improvement in the VAS values of both groups continued up to the end of the treatment period as compared to the baseline (P<0.05). By comparing the VAS values at 3 months and 1 month, there was statistically significant increase in group I only. The immunohistochemical results showed a non-significant effect of both treatments on the level of TNFα along the treatment period (P>0.5).
Conclusions: This study revealed that oleozone gel was found to be effective as triamcinolone acetonide (0.1%) gel in the treatment of oral lichen planus. Oleozone gel could be an alternative treatment option of symptomatic atrophic/erosive oral lichen planus in medically compromised patients.