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In the period 9-1989/12-1991, 47 fertile women affected by genital HPV infection have been treated with i.m. systemic beta-interferon (3 x 10 x 6 UI every other day for 4 weeks). We have noticed 1 case of drop-out (2, 1%). At the short-medium follow-up (> or = 6 months), the therapy has proved to be probably and/or certainly efficacious in 74.4% of cases (35/47). In patients with condylomas in the cervical region, the less respondent part, we have noticed a reaction in 64.3% of cases; in those who have an extra-cervical or diffused HPV infection, in 89.4%. In the patients with complete follow-up, treated with supplementary DTC if necessary, the recovery ratio reached 92.5%. The i.m. systemic therapy with beta-IFN is efficacious in the treatment of genital HPV infections: it is well tolerated and offers the possibility of obtaining a useful "therapeutic integration" with the traditional destructive physical techniques of therapy.

The etiopathology of oral lichen planus (OLP) is still uncertain. It is probably caused by a T lymphocytes cell-mediated autoimmune reaction. This reaction, caused by different pathogenic noxae, develops in subjects with a specific genetic pattern (HLA-DR on the keratinocytes) and some psychic attitude (higher Hamilton anxiety scale (HAS) and Hamilton depression scale (HDS) scores. In literature a psychic component has been often mentioned in OLP etiopathology. This work is a case-control study of replication: it aims to evaluate the importance of psychopathologic trait in patients affected by OLP. The study has been carried out on 16 patients (7 male and 9 female--average age 56) with OLP histologically confirmed. Before biopsy, they had been tested with: General health questionnaire (GHQ). Hamilton anxiety scale (HAS). Hamilton depression scale (HDS) with melancholia scale (MES). We have also studied a survey group of 14 patients affected by leukoplakia and neoplasms of the oral cavity (12 males and 2 female--average age 51). Before biopsy the survey group has been tested with the same questionnaire faced by the studied group. We chose the survey group as follows. Patients with leukoplakia show such similar lesions to OLP that the diagnosis is often histological; as far as patients with oral cavity tumours are concerned we hypothesized a more than usual anxious and depressed behaviour. We compared the score of the OLP patients to the one of the survey group patients using the "One-way Analysis of Variance" (ANOVA) method. The results confirmed that the patients with OLP showed very high scores in HAS and HDS, while the survey group scores were significantly lower.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)