Vascular involvement in Behçet's disease.

Abstract

Behçet's disease (BD) is a multisystem disorder characterized by recurrent oral and genital ulcerations with uveitis. At onset it may present with manifestations of vascular involvement instead of the classical triad. We analyzed 137 patients with BD and 38 had vascular involvement with a prevalence of 27.7%. Male to female ratio was 4.4 and associations of positive pathergy test (76.3%) and eye lesions (57.8%) were higher compared to patients without vascular involvement. Patients with subcutaneous thrombophlebitis were more likely to develop major venous occlusions (22.2%) in the lower extremities and inferior vena cava. Arterial lesions were less frequent features constituting 12.0% of vascular complications in BD.