Epidemiological, clinical, and therapeutic characteristics of Behcet's disease: a monocentric study in Tunisia

Introduction: to describe the epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic and evolving characteristics of Behcet acute accent s disease and identify prognostic factors. Methods: we have realized a retrospective, single center study, conducted over a period of 26 years and including 130 patients presenting Behcet acute accent s disease and hospitalized in an Internal Medicine Department. Results: the mean age of the Behcet acute accent s disease at onset was 30.3 +/- 8.8 years and that at diagnosis was 34.6 +/- 9.4 years. The sex ratio (male/female) was 2.5. The mean delay of diagnosis was 53.5 months. Oral aphthosis was constant. The frequency of the manifestations was: genital aphtosis 71.5%, pseudofolliculitis 84.6%, erythema nodosum 11.5%, positive pathergy test 50%, ocular disease 36.9%, venous thrombosis 30%, arterial disease 4.6%, joint damage 30.8%, neurological disease 19.2% and digestive disease 0.8%. The male gender was significantly associated with ocular involvement (p=0.02), venous disease (p=0.01) and occurrence of relapses (p=0.01). The mean follow up was 68.5 +/- 77.3 months. The poor survival prognostic factors were male gender, ocular involvement, venous disease, cardiovascular disease, a duration of follow up <= 12 months and a diagnostic delay <= 24 months. Conclusion: improving the prognosis of Behcet acute accent s disease requires a shortening of the time to diagnosis, multidisciplinary collaboration, intensive treatment of functional threats, regular monitoring, and patient adherence. study. The aims were to describe the epidemiological, clinical, therapeutic characteristics, evolution modalities, and prognostic factors of Tunisian patients with BD.