Clinical Characteristics of Behçet Disease in an Egyptian Cohort

Abstract

 Behçet's disease is multisystemic vusculitis of unknown etiology, the disease course characterized by exacerbation and remissions. Recurrent skin mucosa lesions and sight threatening uveitis are the hallmark of the disease.  The demographic and clinical features of Behçet’s disease may vary according to different geographical regions, gender and ethnicity. This study done on Egyptian cohort (150 patients) revealed male predominance (77.3%). Smokers tend to have higher disease activity.  Dominant clinical features of Behçet disease among Egyptians included mucocutaneous involvement; recurrent oral aphthous ulcerations (86.7%) and genital ulcers (82.0%).  Ocular affection occured in (68.7%) of our Egyptian cohort, with (35.3%) anterior segment affection. Post segment affection of the eye mainly presented as vitritis (18%) detected by fundus examination and confirmed by B scan ocular ultrasound and retinal vasculitis (7.3%) detected by Fundus Fluorescein Angiography (FFA).  Additional ocular manifestations among Egyptian Behçet’s patients included vitrous hemorrhage (4.7%) detected by fundus examination and confirmed by B scan ocular ultrasound, (macular hole, cystoid macular edema and macular atrophy) detected by fundus examination and better confirmed by Ocular Coherence Tomography (OCT), central retinal vein occlusion (3.3%) and central retinal artery occlusion (2.7%) detected by fundus examination and Fundus Fluorescein Angiography (FFA).