Evaluation of the Serum Calcium Level in Erosive Oral Lichen Planus

Introduction & Lichen planus is a mucocutaneous disorder with unknown etiology, which may have lots of ethological factors like immunological ones. The disease appears in several clinical forms of which the erosive type is the most important despite its low preva-lence. This is because of the signs like pain, irritation and risk of malignancy. In spite of us-ing different drugs, there is no actual treatment for it yet. With respect to the role of calcium in wound healing procedures and regulating immune system, lower serum calcium levels can be considered as one of the factors causing the disease. This study was aimed to investigate the serum total and ionized calcium of patients with erosive oral lichen planus. In this case- control study, 36 patients with oral erosive lichen planus and 72 control subjects were selected randomly and their total and ionized serum calcium were investigated by ISI and Crosolphthalein complex methods. Descriptive statistics as well as two sample t-test, were applied to the data using SPSS15 software. According to the results, the mean numbers of total and ionized serum calcium in the patient group (8.8 mg/dl, 1.11 mmol/L) and control subjects (9.4 mg/dl, 1.18 mmol/L), there were statistically significant differences in total and ionized serum calcium between the groups. It was found that the total and ionized serum calcium in the patients with oral li-chen planus is lower than those of the control subjects. (Sci J Hamadan Univ Med Sci 2015; 22 (1):65-70