PREreview del Vitamin D is a biomarker of clinical disease severity in oral lichen planus

In this paper, the authors recruited a cohort of patients (n=89) with historically confirmed oral lichen planus in a cross-sectional and single site study, while carrying out a comprehensive assessment of clinical characteristics, medical and social history, haematological parameters, vitamin D levels and “Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10)”.

The preprint contains approximately 14 pages of text and three tables.

Introduction:

•  The title, specifically the use of the word “biomarker” may be misleading, as readers may expect a biochemical approach to the study. Furthermore, the use of the term “biomarker” isn’t exactly correct for the role of vitamin D in oral lichen planus, given by its definitio

• In general, the introduction offers a brief overview on the current state of research regarding oral lichen planus, “OLP” for short, as well as its global prevalence.

• There are no images for reference provided, which might have been helpful for readers who are not familiar with oral lichen planus, especially since OLP presents with “the most common clinical presentation”, as stated. In addition, images to present the different severities in oral lichen planus with and without vitamin D deficiency would have contributed to a better understanding of the relevancy of the study.

• Dental/medical terms could have been explained further for readers not familiar with this field

Materials and Methods:

• It is stated that the cross-sectional study was fully compliant with “STROBE” guidelines. Please give a brief definition on what exactly those guidelines include.

• Which statistical text method was used?

• How reliable are the patient’s answers on the questionnaire for the PSS-10?  Since perceived stress is oftentimes subjective, we worry about the comparability of the data.

• Which local reference ranges were used? If this is supposed to be the control group, who was in it? Is there data on their medical history or any of the other relevant factors to this study provided?

• Patients under systemic steroid and immunosuppressive therapy were excluded, a notice on other patients who were under any other medication is needed. A nutrition protocol to detect the patients eating habits may have been useful too, as specific foods and drinks can contribute to inflammation in the oral mucosa, effecting already existing OLP.

• It is written what the abbreviations ODSS and REU stand for, but not further explained what the scoring systems include, what are they based on?

 Results:

• Display of most relevant results may be improved through a more visual choice of display in the form of a diagram for example.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The authors declare that they did not use generative AI to come up with new ideas for their review.