Clinical manifestations of Behçet’s syndrome: A single-center cohort of 777 patients

Objective: Behçet’s syndrome (BS) is a multisystem variable vessel vasculitis characterized by skin-mucosal lesions. It can also involve the eyes, blood vessels, joints, gastrointestinal system, urogenital system, and central nervous system. BS starts in the third or fourth decade and affects both genders equally. The disease is more severe in young men. Although the sensitivity of the pathergy test (PT) is decreasing today, it is still an important clue in the diagnosis of BS. We describe the characteristics of BS in our region, retrospectively. We also analyzed the effect of gender, age, family history, and skin PT positivity status on the difference of clinical involvement.

Methods: A total of 777 BS patients (391 women and 386 men; 40.0 ± 11.6 years old) who applied to our Rheumatology Department between January 2010 and June 2020 were included in the study.

Results: Of the 777 patients, 391 were female (50.3%) and 386 were male (49.7%). The mean age at diagnosis was 30.3 ± 9.8 years. The proportion of patients with BS in their family was 10.2%. Of the 777 patients, 310 (39.9%) had only mucocutaneous symptoms. Other 467 patients (60.1%) had at
least one of the ocular, musculoskeletal, vascular, neurologic, intestinal, or genitourinary involvement. Serious involvements such as eye, cardiovascular, and neurologic involvement were more common in male patients.

Conclusion: BS has the different clinical phenotypes according to gender, age of onset, and skin PT positivity status. Gender influences on the major organ involvements such as eye, neurologic, and vascular.

Cite this article as: Gürbüz C, Yalçın Kehribar D, Özgen M. Clinical manifestations of Behçet’s syndrome: a single-center cohort of 777 patients. Eur J Rheumatol. 2021;8(4):211-216.