What are lichens? The term lichen refers to a symbiotic association between a filamentous fungus, the ‘mycobiont’, and at least one photosynthetic organism, the ‘photobiont’, consisting of a micro alga, a cyanobacterium, or both (Figure 1). Although the symbiotic nature of lichens was first revealed in 1867, the development of a lichen thallus is often so integrated (Figure 1D) that they have b...

Lichen planus (LP) is a chronic inflammatory condition that affects the oral mucous membrane/skin with a variety of clinical presentations. Oral Lichen Planus (OLP) is considered to be associated with numerous systemic conditions one of which includes hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The geographic variation of the hepatitis C prevalence proved to be an important factor influencing the statis...

OBJECTIVES Although several detailed studies concerning the patient profile and clinical features of oral lichen planus have been undertaken all over the world in different populations, a similar study has not yet been conducted in a Turkish population. The purpose of this retrospective study was to describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of a group of patients with oral lichen pl...

Lichen sclerosus et atrophicus and limited systemic scleroderma (acrosclerosis) are inflammatory skin diseases that ultimately evolve into two distinct modes of atrophic scar formation, but which can easily be confused clinically. They are very rarely associated. The literature has reported cases in which lichen sclerosus was associated with various forms of scleroderma, but often with localize...

Forty patients with lichen planus admitted to University Department of Dermatology and Venereology, Sestre milosrdnice University Hospital in Zagreb during the 2004-2006 period were assigned to this retrospective study. In these 40 patients (27 female and 13 male), lichen planus was diagnosed on the basis of clinical presentation, laboratory findings and histopathologic analysis. The results ob...

Change in lichen diversity is often used as a bioindicator to estimate effects of atmospheric pollution, but natural variation in lichen cover and species richness can be very high. We examined the top-down effects of spore-consuming ants and the bottom-up effects of nutrient and light availability on lichen diversity associated with the leaf surface of the rain forest understory plant, Piper c...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS The clinical management of oral lichen planus poses considerable difficulties to the clinician. In recent years, researchers have focused on the presence of pathogenic microorganisms such as Candida albicans in the patients with refractory lichen planus. The aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of candida species in the erosive oral lichen planus lesion...

PURPOSE When not recognized and treated aggressively, lichen sclerosus may progress and cause debilitating symptoms. It also may result in significant morbidity in patients undergoing treatment for urethral strictures because unrecognized, it may result in rapid and severe recurrence after surgical treatment. We present our experience treating patients with lichen sclerosus in an equal access h...

OBJECTIVE Lichen planus is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune mucocutaneous disease. Recent research has emphasized the strong association between inflammation and both P-wave dispersion and dyslipidemia. The difference between the maximum and minimum P-wave durations on an electrocardiogram is defined as P-wave dispersion. The prolongation of P-wave dispersion has been demonstrated to be an ind...

Lichen, a symbiosis between algae and fungus, and sphagnum moss are both able to fight against bacteria. In this experiment, we tested whether moss and lichen have antibiotic or antiseptic properties on human-affecting bacteria, and to find out which types of mosses and lichen have the strongest of these properties. We collected samples of fruticose lichen, foliose lichen, crustose lichen, red ...