No Efficacy of Photodynamic Therapy with Toluidine Blue in Oral Lichen Planus

Oral lichen planus (OLP) is one of the commonest oral mucosal diseases. It is thought to be autoimmune disease mediated through T- lymphocytes to a still unknown antigen. Gold standard are topical corticosteroids although in some cases they are not useful. Furthermore, certain side-effects with prolonged use have been reported. Lately the role of photodynamic therapy has emerged as one of the treatment modalities, however, results from the studies are scarce. Therefore, we evaluated use of toluidine blue with GaAlAs laser (685 nm wavelength, 2.00 J/cm2, power 30mW, area 1.00 cm2, time 01ms, frequency continuous) in five patients with resistant oral lichen planus (unresponsive to topical corticosteroid treatment) every two days (total number of six irradiations). The results of this study showed that this therapy was not efficient in patients with OLP. Therefore, we do not suggest use of toluidine-mediated photodynamic therapy in some patients with refractory oral lichen planus.