Prevalence of oral lichen planus in patients with diabetes mellitus

The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of oral lichen planus in a population of patients with diabetes mellitus compared with a control population and to determine if patient medications had any influence on the presence of such lesions. Two hundred seventy-three patients with diabetes and an identical number of age-, gender- and race-matched controls were examined for clinical evidence of oral lichen planus. Patient medication histories were also obtained from each group. Eleven diabetic patients (4%) and eight control patients (3%) had clinical evidence of oral lichen planus. Ingestion of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors was associated with the presence of oral lichen planus lesions in six patients. There was no apparent association of diabetes and oral lichen planus in this population, and the ingestion of medications known to cause lichenoid mucosal reactions had no influence per se on the presence of oral lichen planus lesions (p > 0.05). However, the type of medication ingested by those patients who had oral lichen planus lesions was either nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug or angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, which was a significant association (p < 0.00).