Role of Herbal Intervention in Reducing Pain and Discomfort in Oral Lichen Planus. A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: Oral lichen planus is a chronic autoimmune disorder that necessitates prompt treatment aimed at alleviating its symptoms. Evidence to support the efficacy of any singular treatment for oral lichen planus is minimal. Among all possible treatments, steroids are considered the gold standard in oral lichen planus therapy due to their effectiveness. This, however, comes with adverse effects that may exacerbate the patient's already miserable life. Herbal interventions (HIs) were tried in the treatment of OLP as safer alternatives. The most appropriate study to evaluate their efficacy would be a randomized controlled trial (RCT). The present systematic review aims to compare with those of steroids in OLP-related randomized controlled trials.

Methodology: PubMed, MEDLINE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Scopus, and grey literature were searched in this study. Eight studies are perhaps available for review.  The registration number of the article on Prospero is CRD420251111982

Results: Within each study, significant reductions in clinical severity were observed in the groups; between-group differences were not noteworthy.

Conclusion: The effectiveness of herbal therapy in OLP must be considered cautiously due to the high risk of bias present in the studies.

Keywords: Herbal intervention, Oral lichen planus, Randomized controlled trial, Steroid