Oral burning and psychological profile in patients with keratotic forms of Oral Lichen Planus: a case control clinical study

This paper aims to analyze oral burning, intraoral, extraoral somatic symptoms and psychological profiles in symptomatic patients with Reticular Keratotic (RK) forms of Oral Lichen Planus (OLP). Thirty symptomatic RK-OLP (sRK-OLP) patients were compared with an equal number of non-symptomatic RK-OLP (nsRK-OLP) patients, burning mouth syndrome (BMS) patients and healthy subjects matched for age, sex and educational level. The Numeric Rating Scale (NRS), the short form of the McGill Pain Questionnaire (SFMPQ), and the Hamilton rating scales for Depression (HAM-D) and Anxiety (HAM-A ) were administered. Descriptive statistics, non-parametric ANOVA procedure by Kruskal-Wallis, exact Fisher test and multiple comparison test by Mann-Whitney U test were performed. The sRK-OLP and BMS patients had statistically higher scores in HAM-D, HAM-A, NRS and SF-MPQ than the nsRK-OLP and healthy controls. The median and inter-quartile range of HAM-D and HAM-A were 11.7-24.0 and 13.7-27.2 for BMS and 12.0-15.0 and 10.7-18.0 for sRK-OLP patients respectively.