Evaluation of Salivary Secretor Status of Blood Group Antigens in Patients with Oral Lichen Planus

OBJECTIVE To investigate the relationship between secretion or nonsecretion of blood group antigens into the saliva and oral lichen planus (OLP). SUBJECTS AND METHODS In this study, 30 patients (women: 22, men: 8) with OLP were examined as the case group and 30 subjects without OLP matched for age and gender as the control group. Diagnosis of OLP was confirmed by clinical and histopathological examinations according to WHO criteria. The control group was randomly selected from healthy individuals without pathological oral changes seeking dental treatment. In both groups, blood group type was determined by hemagglutination, and unstimulated saliva was collected using the Navazesh technique. Establishment of salivary secretor status was carried out using the Wiener agglutination test. The data were analyzed using a Χ2 test, Fisher's exact test, and logistic regression. RESULTS The patients with OLP (cases), including 22 (36.7%) women and 8 (13.3%) men with a mean age of 51 ± 14.16 years, were compared with healthy subjects (controls), comprised of 25 (41.7%) women and 5 (8.3%) men with a mean age of 50.7 ± 13.56 years. A large majority of the people examined in both groups were secretors of blood group A. On the other hand, most OLP patients were blood group B. In the case group, 25 subjects (84.4%) were secretors and 5 (16.6%) were nonsecretors. In the control group, 24 subjects (80.0%) were secretors and 6 (20.0%) were nonsecretors. There was no significant difference between the case and control groups for secretor status (p = 0.73). CONCLUSION The present study did not indicate a significant difference in salivary secretor status between OLP patients compared to controls.