Background: Lichen planus (LP) is a common idiopathic chronic inflammatory immune mediated mucocutanous disease that effects stratified squamous epithelia and appendices. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is quite common across the world. A couple of reports have suggested positive association of HCV infection and oral lichen planus (OLP) and most of the studies are usually confined to Mediterranean and south European countries. Due to high incidence and suspected alliance between these two diseases in Pakistan, the following study was conducted with the view that it may help clinicians to set guidelines for HCV testing of lichen planus patients.Methods: Approximately 11500 patients from general population coming to dental diagnostics department of Fatima Memorial Hospital, Lahore (from March 2015-February 2016) were screened clinically for OLP and by ELISA for HCV infection. Out of these 11500 patients 103 were selected one of them incidental and the other pre-diagnosed or both incidental and both pre-diagnosed. These patients were unaware but had either one or both OLP and HCV infection which was confirmed clinically and by ELISA respectively.Results: Majority of patients presenting for other dental complaints were unaware of these diseases process going on in them and was mostly an incidental finding by the clinician. Either one or both OLP and HCV infection were more conjoint in females comprising 77.7% of the total subjects. OLP alone was most common finding comprising 66.67% of the cases. HCV infection alone was present in 15.53% whereas 16.50% subjects showed presence of both OLP and HCV infection.Conclusions: The current study could not detect statistically significant relationship between OLP and HCV infection in Pakistani population which could be due to genetic variation or may be geographic relationship.

Background and Aims: Dental anxiety often causes psychological problems including the fear that have a negative impact on dental treatment. Periodontal health and dental deteriorating might be caused by the patient’s interference with dental fear. The current study aims to evaluate dental anxiety, smoking and snuff use in dental patients. Methods:One hundred eighty consecutive dental patients with meanage ±SD 31.45±13.75 were investigated for dental anxiety, smoking, and snuff use.The evaluation of dental anxiety was measured with the specific question “Do youfeel any type of anxiety while visiting the dentist?” and their answers were givenas follows: “Absolutely not”, “Somehow” and “Extreme fear”. Tobacco use wasinvestigated with the question “Do you smoke or take snuff?” with the alternatereplies “Absolutely not”, “regularly on a daily basis” and “occasionally. Chi-squaretest and multiple regression analysis were carried out in statistical analysisusing SPSS version 20. Results:Among one hundred eighty dental patients, higher dental anxiety was reported in 32 (17.8%) being common among women (71.9%) than men (28.1%). General mood and social situation was reported negative in 9 and 36 patients respectively. It was observed that tobacco use on routine a basis was more common among men (8.5%) than women (1.5%). Age played key a role in dental fears among patients. Patients of young age feel more anxious than mature or older aged patients. Higher dental anxiety and fear was observed in those dental patients who used snuff on a regular basis compared to occasional and no users at all while controlling for age, social status, and general mood. It was observed that chain smokers feel more anxious compared to occasional or no smoking at all, when smoking was added to the model and asked the participants about their visits to the dentists. Conclusion: Our study findings were common vulnerability factors among dental patients related to dental anxiety or fear, smoking, and snuff use. The reason for patients' anxiety was found to be the fear of pain which was more common among women compared to men. Also, Regular tobacco users felt more anxious than occasional or no users at all. Hence, dentists should focus on anxiety alleviation among patients while treatment and follow-up call for maintenance. Keywords: Dental anxiety, Tobacco use, Dental fear