الفهرس 
Lichen PlanusOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
ichen planus is a mucocutaneous inflammatory disease characterized by small, flat-topped, shiny, polygonal violaceous, pruritic papules that may coalesce into plaques. It involves the skin, mucous membranes, genitalia, nails, and scalp. Its clinical presentation has several forms, including the actinic, hypertrophic, annular, erosive, follicular, linear, pigmented, and bullous type. It affects all races equally and presents mainly in the range from 30 to 70 years of age.
A cell-mediated cytotoxicity has been implicated in the pathogenesis of LP. Several studies have investigated the role of Th1 and Th2 cells and their cytokines in pathogenesis of LP. A third subset called the Th17 because its signature cytokine is IL-17 is a novel class of helper CD4+ T cells. Increasing evidence indicates that IL-17 and IL-17-producing cells are involved in the pathogenesis of various diseases such as allergies, autoimmune diseases, allograft transplantation and even malignancy.
The objective of this study was to assess serum level of IL-17 in LP patients with and without HCV infection in comparison with age- and sex-matched controls, to gain further insight about the role of this cytokine in the immune-pathogenesis of LP. The present study included 30 patients with classic type of LP; divided according to HCV infection into 2 equally distributed subgroups (HCV+ve LP & HCV-ve LP),