Effect of Cedar Honey in the Treatment of Oral Lichen Planus

Oral Lichen Planus(OLP)is a chronic mucocutaneus disease with an immunological etiology. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of Cedar honey in treatment of erosive- atrophic OLP. Thirty patients with confirmed clinical and histopathologic of OLP participated in a randomized clinical trial in Mashhad Dental School.Patients were randomly allocated in two groups. Both groups received the standard treatment of OLP (dexamethasone mouthwash 0.5mg 3 times daily and fluconazole capsule 100 mg daily).Intervention group received Cedar honey (20 ml 3 times daily, swish and swallow technique)in addition to standard treatment. The patients were followed for 4 weeks.The pain and severity of the lesions were recorded at the initial visit and follow ups. All recorded data were analyzed with chi- square, T test, ANOVA using SPSS version 11.5and p-value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Thirty patients were included in the study. Both groups had markedly reduction in pain, size of erosive area and atrophic lesions specially in first follow up but there was not a significant different between two groups (p>0.05). Honey was effective in healing of ulcerative lesions.(The average recovery in experimental group was 69% while the average relief of ulcerative lesion in control group was 50%).but this difference was not significant(p=0.896) No significant difference was found in the treatment of atrophic and erosive lesions of OLP by using honey as an alternative treatment, but it may be effective in ulcerative lesions of OLP, although more research with larger sample size is necessary.