Increased thickness of the carotid artery intima-media assessed by ultrasonography in Behçet's disease

Objective. Behcet's disease (BD), is a unique systemic vasculitis, which af - fects almost all types and sizes of blood vessels. Carotid intima-media thick - ness (IMT) is an endothelial cell dys- function (ECD) parameter which may also be associated with atherosclerosis. We aimed to search carotid IMT and plaque formation in BD, using high-r e - solution B-mode Doppler ultrasonog- raphy (USG). Methods. We studied 114 BD patients (M/F: 68/46; mean age 38.15±9 . 4 4 years; disease duration 121 ± 7 9 months), being followed up by Ege University Rheumatology Department. Age and sex-matched, 77 healthy con- trols, and as the disease control group 46 non-matched SLE patients were also included. Exclusion criteria for all the study participants were hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, obe- sity and history of cardiovascula r or c e re b rovascular disease. Comparison of the three groups were made by ANOVA and for post-hoc confirmation, Bonferoni test was used. Results. The carotid IMT in BD (mean ± SD, 0.55 ± 0.14 mm) was significant- ly higher than in healthy controls (0.48 ± 0.09 mm) (p = 0.004), but signifi- cantly lower than in SLE (0.66 ± 0.24 mm) (p = 0.001). Likewise, plaque fre - quency in BD (5/114) was significantly higher than in healthy controls (0/77), but significantly lower than in SLE (8/46) (p < 0.001). Conclusion. Despite significantly higher carotid IMT and plaque fre - quency in BD compared with healthy controls, these parameters in BD were not as marked as in SLE. Less severe c a rotid art e ry abnormalities in BD, may partially explain why cardiovascu- lar morbidity and mortality do not seem to be increased in BD, unlike in SLE.