Association of Oral Lichen Planus and Its Treatment on Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha: A Review Literature and Meta-analysis

Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a relatively common chronic inflammatory disease. The tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) is considered as a major mediator in inflammation reactions. No review articles have been done on evaluating TNF-α levels before and after performing standard treatments of OLP so far. This study aimed to provide a complete review on the association between this cytokine and OLP as well as determining the role of therapeutic agents in improving the OLP lesions by measuring the level of this cytokine. Some databases including PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Embase (Ovid) with keywords of oral lichen planus, Nuclear Factor Kappa B (NF-κB), OLP, TNF-α, and Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha without time limit (2017 - 1900) were searched to collect the needed data from the related articles. For this purpose, 14 completely related articles were included in this study. Of them, 3 studies that assessed the effect of the standard treatment of oral lichen planus, were included in this meta-analysis. As a result, a significant effect of standard treatment on TNF-α levels in OLP patients has been shown (P-value = 0.02). TNF-α level in OLP patients was higher than in normal subjects, so it can be suggested that the TNF-α levels may be useful in determining prognosis and effectiveness of the treatment performed.