Background: The aim of this systematic review was to assess the efficacy of photodynamic therapy (PDT) in the treatment of symptomatic oral lichen planus (OLP).
Methods: This systematic review aimed to address the following focused question: "Is PDT effective in the treatment of symptomatic OLP?" Indexed databases such as MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CENTRAL were searched up to and including August 2017.
Results: Six clinical studies were included. The risk of bias was considered high in 5 studies and moderate in one study. Parameters of PDT such as wavelengths, energy fluence, power density and exposure time ranged between 320-660 nm, 120 J/cm2 , 130 mW/cm2 , and 70-150 seconds, respectively. The follow-up period ranged from 4 to 48 weeks. All included studies reporting clinical scores showed that PDT was effective in the treatment of OLP in adult patients at follow-up. However, PDT did not show significant improvement when compared with steroid therapy.
Conclusion: Photodynamic therapy appears to have some effect in the symptomatic treatment of OLP in adult patients. However, further randomized controlled trials with long follow-up period, standardized PDT parameters, and comparing the efficacy of PDT with steroid therapy are warranted to obtain strong conclusions in this regard.
Keywords: oral lichen planus; photochemotherapy; systematic review.
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.