Reduced in vivo cell-mediated immune responses to mumps, tuberculin, and streptokinase/streptodornase but not to Candida albicans in oral lichen planus

Oral lichen planus is considered to be a T-cell-mediated disease. The purpo se of this study was to investigate the capacity of T-lymphocytes in oral l ichen planus patients to respond to a number of commonly encountered enviro nmental antigens ill vivo. To do this, we assessed dermal delayed-type hype rsensitivity responses to mumps, streptokinase/streytodornase, Candida albi cans, and purified protein derivative of tuberculin (PPD) in 17 oral lichen planus patients and in matched controls. Reduced induration in response to ward mumps, PPD, and streptokinase/streptodornase was demonstrated in oral lichen planus patients compared with controls. In addition, the total sum o f induration diameters was decreased in the patients. However, C. albicans stimulation resulted in similar levels of response in both groups. The diff erences in induration size between matched patients and controls for mumps and PPD were thus significantly greater than the corresponding differences for the C. albicans antigen. This suggests that a selective difference in t he response to these antigens exists in oral lichen planus patients. The re sults may point to a loss of memory T-helper function to infrequently encou ntered environmental antigens, represented by mumps, PPD, and streptokinase /streptodornase, contrarily to memory function to common antigens (C. albic ans), which seem to be unaffected.