The present study was designed to compare the prevalence of Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in saliva of oral lichen planus (OLP) patients with its serum levels, in order to verify the effectiveness of salivary VEGF in monitoring OLP lesions. Thirty eight individuals were included and subdivided into 4 groups, 8 patients suffering from papular OLP, 11 patients with atrophic OLP, 11 patients with erosive OLP and 8 individuals having age and gender matched with previous groups acting as a control group. Serum and whole unstimulated saliva samples were collected from all the included individuals to determine VEGF level in both saliva and serum utilizing the ELISA technique. The results showed that the control group had the lowest level of VEGF in both saliva and serum and the papular group had slightly higher values than that of the control. As for the erosive group, it showed the highest levels of VEGF in saliva as well as in serum followed by the atrophic group. Thus, it could be concluded that both serum and salivary VEGF levels correlate perfectly with the clinical severity of different OLP lesions and that VEGF seems to play an important role in pathogenesis, activity, and severity of OLP lesions also that the analysis of salivary VEGF level is a non-invasive reliable way for the diagnosis and the monitoring of disease activity and a measure of the effectiveness of new therapeutic modalities.
Aim: The current study compared the VEGF expression in both serum and saliva between various forms of OLP patients and control subjects in order to determine the effectiveness of salivary VEGF to reflect the disease activity.