Evaluation of cellular proliferative activity in patients with oral lichen planus and hepatitis C through AgNOR method.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the cellular proliferative potential of oral lichen planus (OLP) lesions from patients without hepatitis C virus (HCV) by means of AgNOR method, as well as the cellular proliferative potential of the normal oral mucosa from patients with HCV, treated or untreated by interferon and ribavirin. A cross-sectional study was developed to investigate four groups: 10 HCV+ patients without clinical signs of OLP who had never been treated for HCV infection - Group 1; 10 HCV+ patients that were under interferon and ribavirin treatment - Group 2; 15 patients with reticular OLP lesions histopathologically confirmed, without HCV - Group 3; and 15 blood donors without HCV infection and no clinical signs of OLP GROUP 4 Control Group. The cytological material of all groups was collected by the liquid-based cytology technique. Then, the sedimented material from each patient was filled with the Nucleolar Organizer Regions impregnation by silver method (AgNOR). The count of NORs was performed on 100 epithelial cell nuclei per patient using the Image Tool(tm) software. The Tukey HSD test was used to compare the median value of NORs among the groups and showed that the oral mucosa of HCV+ patients previously treated with anti-HCV drugs (GROUP 2), presented a higher average number of NORs in relation to others (p<0.05). The anti-HCV treatment may be related to increased cell proliferation of oral mucosa, indicating a possible relationship between OLP and HCV+ patients treated with interferon and ribavirin.