prevalence of diabetes mellitus and impaired fasting blood glucose in patients with lichen planus

background: the relationship between lichen planus (lp) and diabetes was studied previously, but the re-sults were in conflict. the aim of this study was to find the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (dm) in patients with lp among iranian patients. methods: in this study, 80 patients with lp were enrolled. they referred to dermatology clinic of our hospital during one year. a self-designed checklist for the study included duration of the disease, the pattern of the dis-tribution of lichenoid lesions and fasting blood sugar (fbs). results: from 80 patients with lp, 16 (20%) had diabetes. also, 14 patients (17.5%) had impaired fasting glucose. the mean age of diabetic patients was significantly higher than non-diabetic group (p=0.039). in addi-tion, the duration of lp in patients with dm was significantly higher than non-diabetic patients (p=0.024). conclusion: in our study, we saw a high prevalence of dm among patients with lp. comparing our findings with the overall prevalence of dm in iran, there was a significant difference between the prevalence of dm among patients with lp and the overall prevalence (p=0.001). regarding our findings screening for fbs in pa-tients with lp is required in iran.