Hi Steve -
There are a handful of people in here with the same diagnosis, my husband being one of them. His ENT says he has BOTH lichen planus AND leukoplakia, but that the cancers he has had probably erupted from the lichen planus. If you research (Google) these, they say the leukoplakia is more likely to become cancerous than the lichen planus, but not in these cases. As you can see by my "signature", he has had 4 oral cancers, all small enough to be surgically removed without further treatment. He is CONSTANTLY monitored by 2 different ENTs, dentist, oral surgeon, and an oncologist. Being he never smoked,or "chewed", and drinks very little, we of course are puzzled as to the reason behind these eruptions. His latest biopsy a few weeks ago was negative, thank goodness. He has had the lichen planus for decades, by the way. Anyway, the lesions SEEM to have been occuring near crowns or fillings. He has lost 3 teeth with surgeries so far, 2 of them gold crowned teeth. Now he is having the remaining "metal/gold" crowns replaced with porcelain, "just to see" if it makes a difference. It is only SPECULATION, of course, to "blame" the alloys in gold dental work for his L.P. turning cancerous, but time will tell if this stops. Of course, the fact that this happens also indicates a POSSIBLE genetic connection - "gene therapy" is very new and just in its infant stages of discovery, but it could be that he is missing the "tumor suppressing gene" (P53? or LOH - loss of heterozygosity?)which makes his lesions turn cancerous following irritation? Answers are in the future...not too far, I hope. Anyway, that is our story re: oral lichen planus. Feel free to ask us questions. Warmly, JaneP