title: Evaluation of serum nitric oxide level in patients with oral lichen planus.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Oral lichen planus (OLP) is a chronic inflammatory oral mucosal disease with indefinite etiology. In recent researches, free radicals have been deliberated as the possible etiology of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study was aimed to evaluate the stress oxidative status with the nitric oxide (NO) index in a sample of Iranian population.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this descriptive-comparative study, serum NO level was assessed in 20 OLP patients as the case group and 20 healthy individuals as the control group. Collected data were analyzed by adopting two Sample t-test, using SPSS 16 software. The statistical significance level was set at p< 0.05.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean serum NO levels in OLP patients and healthy controls were 17.1±3.4 ng/ml and 14.5±2.7 ng/ml respectively; which revealed a significant statistical difference (p= 0.009).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of the current study with its limitation may support the premise that higher serum levels of NO in patients with OLP might activate the process of lymphocytes and cellular immunity system; hence, possibly endorsing the effect of serum NO in pathogenesis of lichen planus.
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mehdipour
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Taghavi Zenouz
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bahramian
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gholizadeh
authors.affiliation: Dept. of Oral Medicine, School of Dentistry, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boorghani
keywords: Lichen planus; Nitric oxide; Oxidative stress