Introduction:

Lichen planus (LP) is a systemic autoimmune disease of unknown etiology and chronic course that can result in the development of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OECD).

Objective:

To evaluate the evidence related to the malignization of the LPO as well as the clinical characteristics and the incidence of the lesions that can develop a COCE.

Material and methods:

The MEDLINE PubMed database of the last 5 years (2013-2018) was reviewed using the following keywords: “malignant transformation of oral lichen planus” and “squamous cell oral carcinoma”.

Results:

48 articles were obtained, after reading the summaries and applying our inclusion and exclusion criteria, we obtained a total of 19 articles, in addition to the 4 articles added by manual search. The review is based on the comparison of 9 cohort studies to analyze the incidence of progression from LPO to COCE.

Conclusions:

We should consider the LPO as a potentially malignant disease (0.5-1%), being the female sex, the erosive type and the localization in the tongue as a risk factors for the transformation to COCE. Taking into account the risk of malignancy, it is essential to control the lesions in order to make an early diagnosis.

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