Abstract: In a study on 391 cases of BD presented to the EULAR Congress in 1987 we demonstrated that the following symptoms were seen more frequently in patients with positive pathergy phenomenon: oral aphthosis as the initial manifestation of the disease, genital ulcerations, pseudofolliculitis, and arthralgia. The following symptoms, on the contrary were seen less frequently: oral aphthosis, ankylosing spondylitis. It was interesting to look after those findings, 6 years later, in ...
Abstract: Pulse cyclophosphamide (PCP) is the most effective and the least toxic treatment in posterior uveitis (pU) and/or retinal vasculitis (RV) of Behcet's disease (BD). Conventional doses (1 g/m2) may be associated with minor side effects such as hair loss, nausea and vomiting. To find whether lower doses, such as those already employed in Lupus nephritis should be useful, we administered IVLDP (0.5 g/m2/month) plus prednisolone (0.5 mg/kg/day) to 40 BD ...
Abstract: There are 5 major sets of diagnosis criteria for BD: Mason & Barnes, O'Duffy, Dilsen, Japan revised criteria, and the International criteria (the latest one). To evaluate their accuracy we analysed their sensitivity and specificity in 2069 BD and 1519 control patients. The accuracy was calculated by the sum of BD patients fulfilling the criteria and the control patients correctly classified as non BD, divided by the sum of the ...
Abstract: It is accepted today that cytotoxic drugs are the only remittent agents in posterior uveitis (PU) and retinal vasculitis (RV) of Behcet's disease (BD). The important question is which cytotoxic is the most effective and the least harmful. We compare here the results of 3 efficient methods of cytotoxic therapy with the same mean follow-up time of 12 months: I.V. Pulse Cyclophosphamide (PCP) in 121 patients, weekly low dose Methotrexate ...
Abstract: The diagnosis method by Classification And Regression Tree (CART) is gaining more importance every year, specially in Rheumatology by the efforts of the American College of Rheumatology. The classification tree not only provides an accurate tool for diagnosis, it gives a better insight of the manifestations of the disease and the value of different criteria for the diagnosis. In this study we analyzed 1992 Behcet's patients (BP) and 1506 control ...
Abstract: Antimalarials are among the most important disease modifying drugs used in Rheumatology. The major problem with them is their effects on eyes. We have done a retrospective study on 1598 patients with RA and SLE using Chloroquine for 1 month to 16 years (Mean 41 months). Eye problems was detected in 330 patients (20.6%). We found corneal deposition in 205 (13%) that was graded as severe (11%), moderate (12%) and ...
Abstract: Behcet's disease (BD) is not rare in children, and it's clinical picture differs from that in adults. We studied 66 patients in whom the disease was diagnosed under the age 16 from a population of 2068 BD patients. Comparison of the results with the adults by the student paired t test showed: although the most frequent initial manifestation of BD in children was oral aphthosis (54.5%), it was less frequent ...
Abstract: The annual incidence of Behcet's Disease (BD) is as high as 300 patients per year. The mean age at the onset of the first symptom is 26.7 years (SD = 9.7). The sex distribution is 54% male and 46% female. The initial manifestation was mainly oral aphthosis (73%), uveitis (13%), genital ulcerations (11%), arthritis (9%), and skin manifestations (9%). Clinical manifestations were as fallow: mucous membrane manifestations were seen in 95.5% ...
Abstract: An increased rate of infection among SLE patients has long been reported from western countries. In a retrospective study in 893 patients, we analyzed 203 cases who had one or more episodes of infection between 1974 and 1992. Among them 181 were females and 22 were males (89% female) . The diagnosis of infection was established by both clinical and laboratory findings. Almost more than half of the infections were ...