Comparative effect of tacrolimus 0.1% ointment and clobetasol 0.05% ointment in patients with oral lichen planus

Abstract

Background: Oral lichen planus (OLP) is considered to be an autoimmune disease of unknown aetiology that affects the mucosae, especially the oral cavity. Objective: We compared tacrolimus 0.1% ointment and clobetasol 0.05% ointment for the treatment of OLP. Patients and Methods: A total of 32 patients (20 females and 12 males; all white, Italian origin, mean age of 43.6 AE 18.4 years; 16 patients per treatment group) were treated with tacrolimus or clobetasol ointment for 4 weeks in a randomized, double-blind, clinical trial. Pain severity, burning sensation, and mucosal lesion extension were assessed using a four-point scale.Results: At the end of the treatment period, symptom scores were significantly lower in the tacrolimus group than in the clobetasol group. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that tacrolimus 0.1% ointment is more effective than clobetasol propionate 0.05% ointment in the treatment of OLP. However, other studies are needed to confirm the effectiveness of this treatment before it can be recommended for use in clinical practice.

The Effectiveness of Topical Pimecrolimus in the Treatment of Oral Lichen Planus

“…Two recent randomized trials reported that tacrolimus was more effective than topical corticosteroids (triamcinolone and clobetasol) in controlling painful symptoms of erosive OLP (26,27). However, another randomized, double-blind study found no significant differences between tacrolimus and clobetasol in the management of symptomatic OLP (28).…”

Liquen plano: Revisión de la literatura actual

“…Se ha comparado su eficacia frente a la de los retinoides tópicos, y se ha visto que los preparados de Tacrólimus al 0,1% resultan más efectivos que el propionato de clobetasol al 0,05% en el tratamiento del LPO (46). Sin embargo, los autores reconocen en este estudio que para poder defender el uso de inmunosupresores para el tratamiento de esta enfermedad hacen falta todavía estudios llevados a cabo en poblaciones más grandes.…”

Medical Management of Oral Lichen Planus: A Systematic Review

“…Topical tacrolimus was used in four trials [13,22,23,35], topical pimecrolimus in four trials [15,17,24,33], topical cyclosporine in four trials [3,5,14,16].…”

“…[18] all the participants received a systemic steroid, and in another study [28] the experimental intervention was compared with intralesional steroid. Of the 29 trials using steroid as an active intervention, clobetasol was used in nine trials [4,7,10,11,19,22,23,27,35], triamcinolone in ten trials [4,5,[13][14][15][16]20,28,31,36], flucinolone in two trials [6,8], dexamethasone in two trials [29,34], prednisolone in one trial [18], fluticasone in one trial [9] & betamethasone in two trials [9,20]. Systemic prednisolone was used in one trial [18].…”

“…Pain was reported as a continuous outcome using visual analogue scales (VAS) of different lengths in all trials, except five trials [3,17,22,20,35]. Eisen measured global symptom scores on an ordinal scale of 0 to 3 [3].…”