The Comparison of Efficacy of Adcortyl Ointment and Topical Tacrolimus in Treatment of Erosive Oral Lichen Planus

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a common chronic mucocutaneous disease. Patients with atrophic and erosive lichen planus often have symptoms of soreness and need proper treatment. The main therapy of OLP has been the administration of topical or systemic corticosteroids. Potent topical corticosteroids have been increasingly prescribed in the treatment of erosive lichen planus. The purpose of this study was to compare the efficacy of adcortyl ointment (triamcinolone in orabase) with topical tacrolimus for the treatment of erosive oral lichen planus. MATERIALS AND METHODS Sixty Patients with histopathologically confirmed oral lichen planus were enrolled in the study. The severity of lesions was scored from 0 to 5 according to the criteria described in a previous study. Patients were randomly given adcortyl (group A) and topical tacrolimus ointment (group B) and asked to apply the medication on dried lesions 4 times a day. The lesions were evaluated after 4 weeks of treatment. Visual analogue scale was used to assess the severity of pain before and after treatment. The severity scores were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis k-sample test. RESULTS The average score of lesions improved from 3.4 to 1.5 in patients who received adcortyl ointment and from 3.2 to 1.2 in patients who received topical tacrolimus ointment. The differences between the im-provements in scores were not statistically significant in the two groups. The average pain severity in A and B groups was 8.2 and 7.8 at the beginning of treatment, and 3.5 and 3.2 at the end of treatment, respectively. There was a statistically significant reduction in pain severity in both groups. CONCLUSION Topical tacrolimus is a safe and effective alternative therapy in the treatment of oral lichen planus.