Evaluation of the efficacy of lycopene in the management of oral lichen planus: a pilot randomized clinical trial

Lichen planus is an inflammatory mucocutaneous disease which involves 0.2‒4% of the population and has an unknown etiology. There is no definite treatment for the disease and current treatment modalities are palliative in nature. Although the exact cause of lichen planus is not clear, some scientists believe that free radicals and oxidative stress might have a role in causing this condition. The current study was conducted to assess the therapeutic effect of lycopene in treating erosive and atrophic oral lichen planus.
Thirty patients whose disease was confirmed by a pathologist were included in the clinical trial from January to July 2016 in the Department of Oral Medicine, Faculty of Dentistry, Zahedan University of Medical Sciences. The patients were randomly divided into two groups. The first group was treated with topical corticosteroid and 15 mg of systemic lycopene daily for a month and the second group received only topical corticosteroids. We recommended that the patients use the drugs (topical corticosteroids) four times a day, avoiding taking food for one hour after applying the drugs. Pain severity was recorded by numeric rating scale before and after the treatment and disease score was recorded by Thongprasom scale before and after treatment. Data were analyzed with SPSS 18. Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the groups.
In the case and control groups, pain scores before treatment were 5.4±1.2 and 5.7±0.9, with 3.01±1.8 and 3.2±1.5 after treatment, respectively. There was no significant difference between the two groups (P= 0.6, P= 0.4). Disease scores before treatment were 4.1±1 and 4±0.8, with 1.7±1.2 and 1.8±1.5 after treatment, respectively. There was no significant difference between the groups (P= 0.7, P= 0.8).
In this study the use of systemic lycopene did not increase the effect of topical corticosteroid; in addition, the results showed that the systemic use of 15 mg of lycopene in addition to topical corticosteroid treatment had no significant effect on patients’ pain and disease scores in comparison to topical corticosteroids.