Analysing the Sex Predilection of Oral Lichen Planus - A Hospital based Retrospective Study

Oral lichen planus is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting the mucous membrane. It has a characteristic papular plaque like appearance. It may be caused due to a dental restoration, having a prolonged oral infection, presence of any autoimmune disorder or sustaining an injury to the mouth. And it also has systemic association with hypertension, diabetes, thyroid dysfunction, GVHD. There a very few studies done on the sex predilection of oral lichen planus. This study will be of epidemiological significance in the south Indian population. The current study was done to analyze the sex predilection of oral lichen planus. This study was done under a university setting with the data collected from June 2019 to April 2020. The sample size was 59 patients. The data was collected from the patient records. Data was verified and tabulated and later appropriate statistics was performed. Females showed a higher prevalence with59% and males 41%. Erosive lichen planus 42% was the most common clinical variant followed by reticular type 37%. On correlating gender with the clinical variants, lichen planus was found to be the most common clinical variant among the females. The chi square analysis between the gender and variant of oral lichen planus was insignificant (P value 0.109.)Within the limitations of the study we conclude that oral lichen planus is more prevalent in females than males. Erosive lichen planus is the most common variant followed by the reticular variant.