Association between oral lichen planus and Epstein–Barr virus in Iranian patients

Abstract

Background: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a common mucocutaneous disease with malignant transformation potential. Several etiologies such as humoral, autoimmunity, and viral infections might play a role, but still there is no defnite etiology for this disease. Te aim of this study was to investigate the presence of Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) genome in Iranian patients with OLP as compared to people with normal mucosa. Materials and Methods: Te study was carried out on a case group including 38 tissue specimens of patients with histopathological confrmation of OLP and a  control group including 38 samples of healthy mucosa. All samples were examined by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method to  determine the DNA of EBV. Results: Twenty?two (57.9%) female samples and 16 (42.1%) male samples with OLP were randomly selected as the case group, and 20 (52.6%) female samples and 18 (47.4%) male samples with healthy mucosa as the control group. Tere was a statistically signifcant di?erence in the percentage of EBV positivity between the case (15.8%) and the control groups (P < 0.05); in the case group, three female samples (13.6%) and three male samples (18.8%) were infected with EBV; the di?erence between the genders was not statistically signifcant (P = 0.50). Conclusion: Results emphasized that EBV genome was signifcantly higher among Iranian patients with OLP so antiviral therapy
might be helpful