Evaluation of Salivary Total Sialic Acid in Patients with Oral Erosive Lichen Planus

Oral lichen planus is considered as on oral premalignant lesion. Moreover, cell surface glycoconjugates such as sialic acid play an important role during malignant transformation of cells. In this study, salivary total sialic acid level was compared in patients with oral erosive lichen planus and healthy persons.
Unstimulated saliva samples of 60 subjects (30 patients with oral lichen planus and 30 healthy) individuals who referred to the oral medicine department of dental school of Zahedan were collected. The level of salivary total sialic acid was measured by standard biochemical methods and the obtained data were analyzed by statistical spss-20 through t-test.
The mean level of salivary total sialic acid was 85.63±48.89 mg/ml in patient group and 60.02±26.45 in control group. The difference was statistically significant (P=0.002).
The level of salivary total sialic acid was higher in patients with oral erosive lichen planus compared to the healthy group.