Is oral lichen planus a risk factor for peri-implant diseases? A systematic review and meta-analysis

To evaluate whether oral lichen planus (OLP) is a risk factor for peri-implant diseases (PIDs) with a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Five electronic databases including Medline, Embase, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library and Scopus were searched. The included studies are observational human studies written in English. The population of interest included those with/without OLP who received dental implant treatment. The follow-up time after implantation was from 1 month to 20 years. The quality of the included articles regarding risk of bias and methodology were assessed with the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale or the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The data involving exposure (OLP), primary outcomes (implants having PIDs) and secondary outcomes (probing depth/PD, bleeding on probing/BOP and bone loss/BL) and potential confounders were extracted. Heterogeneity was assessed by I² test. Dichotomous data are expressed as the risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) which were calculated with a fixed effect model.

Of the 66 articles, two studies were enrolled and evaluated as high quality, which totally contained 68 participants receiving 222 (OLP vs. non-OLP, 112 vs. 110) implants with 12 to 120-month follow-up time. Proportions of implants with PIDs between OLP and non-OLP groups were as follows: 19.6% (22/112) vs. 22.7% (25/110) for PIM and 17.0% (19/112) vs. 10.9% (12/110) for PI. The meta-analysis revealed no recognizable difference in number of implants with PIDs (PI: RR = 1.49, 95% CI 0.77-2.90, P = 0.24; PIM:RR = 0.88, 95% CI 0.53-1.46, P = 0.61; PIDs: RR = 1.08, 95% CI 0.75-1.55, P = 0.68) or BOP (RR = 0.90, 95% CI: 0.70-1.15, P = 0.40) between OLP and non-OLP groups.

Available articles regarding the effects of OLP on PIDs remains very limited. Existing evidence does not support OLP as a suspected risk factor for PIDs. Large-scale prospective trials are required to validate the findings.