Atrophic and Erosive Types of Oral Lichen Planus and the Risk of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Retrospective Study at the University Hospital of Modena

Abstract

This retrospective study draws on the experience of the Department of Maxillofacial Surgery at the Policlinico of Modena in managing Oral Lichen Planus (OLP) cases diagnosed between 2019 and 2024. We examined 60 cases of OLP, comprising 37 women and 23 men. The mean age was 61.28, and the median was around 62 years. We included smoking and alcohol consumption, gender, and clinical presentation as significant risk variables with high predictive power. It is crucial to note that individuals from our study population have advanced, unusual, or suspicious forms of OLP. We specifically chose to extrapolate the patients with erosive OLP diagnoses. According to the results, patients between the ages of 45 and 75 upon diagnosis had a higher chance of developing malignant transformation, and risk factors like drinking, smoking, and specific clinical patterns such as atrophic or erosive OLP were found to be significant. All the patients with SCC progression in our clinic were female.