Salivary Interferon Gamma and Interleukin-4 Levels in Patients Suffering from Oral Lichen Planus

Objective: oral lichen planus (olp) is a chronic inflammatory disease. immunologicalfactor may act as etiological factor. the cellular immune cells such as t cells are importantin pathogenesis. interferon gamma (ifn-?) and interleukin 4 (il-4) are secreted byt-helper 1 (th1) and th2, respectively. the aim of this study was to investigate the correlationbetween salivary levels of ifn-? and il-4 with olp.materials and methods: this case control study included sixty three iranian olp patientswho were selected from the department of oral medicine of ahvaz jundishapur universityof medical sciences from january to july 2013. an equal number of healthy volunteerswere also selected as a control group. the olp patients were then divided into two followingsub-groups: reticular (n=30) and erythematous/ulcerative (n=33). all patients had nosystemic disease and received no medication. ifn-? and il-4 levels in whole unstimulatedsaliva (wus) were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (elisa)test. data analysis was done using t test, anova, least significant difference (lsd) test,and the kruskal-wallis test.results: reticular olp patients showed higher salivary ifn-? (7.74 ± 0.09 pg/ml )and il-4 (3.876 ± 0.05 pg/ml) levels compared with the control group, indicating thatdifference was significant. salivary ifn-?/il-4 ratio significantly increased comparedwith control group (p=0.042). salivary ifn-? and il-4 levels between sub-groups (reticularand erythematous/ulcerative) were not significantly different (2.6 ± 0.06 and 2.3± 0.05, respectively, p < 0.05).conclusion: salivary ifn-? and il-4 levels were increased in olp patients. an increaseof salivary ifn-?/il-4 ratio in olp patients showed that th1 might have a dominant role inthe olp pathogenesis.