The expert committee has classified the majority of patients in the BD group although they presented with few symptoms independently of BD classification criteria.
Background
The diagnosis of Behçet disease (BD) is challenging in many cases. The purpose of this study was to describe the clinical characteristics of patients at a referral BD clinic.
Methods
In a retrospective study, we collected data from patients at a national referral Behçet clinic from November 2018–August 2019. A BD diagnosis was confirmed (BD group) or ruled out (Non-BD group), and the two groups were compared for differences.
Results
A total of 238 patients satisfied the inclusion criteria. Forty patients (16.8%) were finally diagnosed with BD. Ocular and genital lesions were significantly more prevalent in the BD group. A positive pathergy test and HLA-B51 were also significantly more common in BD. However, oral lesions, articular involvement, and gastrointestinal manifestations were similar between groups. Also, patients with BD were significantly more likely to have multi-organ (≥2 organ systems) involvement.
Conclusions
Being the first study to evaluate the clinical characteristics of patients who are visited at a referral BD clinic and are believed to have a high probability of Behçet, the results of this study are important from an epidemiological standpoint. Also, the findings of this study could be used by referral Behçet clinics, which evaluate and diagnose patients with a high pretest probability and atypical presentations of BD on a daily basis. The alternative diagnoses established in this study could be used as the list of the most common differential diagnoses for Behçet’s disease.
The effect of colchicine was evaluated in a large cohort of Behçet's disease (BD) patients and compared to placebo. In a randomized, double-blind, controlled crossover trial, 169 patients without major organ involvement were selected consecutively. They fulfilled the International Criteria for Behçet's Disease. Patients were randomly assigned to colchicine or placebo. At 4 months, they were swapped over (colchicine to placebo, placebo to colchicine) for another 4 months. The primary outcome was the overall disease activity index, the IBDDAM. The secondary outcome was the responses of the individual symptoms. A Student's paired t test was used to evaluate results within each group, and an ANOVA to check for differences between colchicine and placebo. Analysis was performed using the "intention to treat" method. For placebo, IBDDAM worsened from 3.17 to 3.63 (t = 1.750, P = 0.08). For colchicine, IBDDAM improved from 3.35 to 2.75 (t = 4.143, P < 0.0001). Oral aphthosis, genital aphthosis, pseudofolliculitis, and erythema nodosum improved significantly with colchicine but not with placebo. According to the ANOVA, the difference in IBDDAM between colchicine and placebo was highly significant (F = 14.674, P = 0.00016). The difference between the results for males and females was not significant (F = 0.181, P = 0.67). In conclusion, colchicine, but not placebo, significantly improved the overall disease activity index. The difference between the results for colchicine and placebo was also statistically significant.
Abstract. Background: Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease. Antioxidants intake and body antioxidants status are important in patients with RA. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between dietary intake of some antioxidant micronutrients with some inflammatory and antioxidant markers in patients with active rheumatoid arthritis and comparison with Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, eighty-seven patients with active rheumatoid arthritis were included. Dietary antioxidants intake was measured using 24-hour recall questionnaire and food record (3 days). Blood levels of inflammatory and antioxidant markers were determined by laboratory tests. The association between intake of antioxidants with inflammatory and antioxidant markers, and also with RDA were determined using Paired-Samples t-test and Pearson correlation by SPSS software. Results: The findings showed that intakes of vitamin E, zinc, and magnesium in patients were significantly lower and intakes of copper and selenium were significantly higher than RDA (P < 0.05). Significant negative correlations were observed between vitamin A intake with PGE2 [R = −0.31], vitamin C intake with IL-1β [R = −0.25], zinc intake with PGE2 [R = −0.30], IL-2 [R = −0.23], and the activity of glutathione reductase enzyme [R = −0.21], magnesium intake with PGE2 [R = −0.24], IL-1β [R = −0.23] and IL-2 [R = −0.25], and selenium intake with PGE2 [R = −0.21] (P < 0.05). Also, significant positive correlations were observed between intakes of vitamin E and copper with catalase enzyme activity [R = 0.22 and R = 0.21 respectively] (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Some of the antioxidant micronutrients play important roles in the reduction of inflammatory conditions and improve the function of antioxidant enzymes in patients with rheumatoid arthritis.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.