Systemic and pulmonary screening of patients with Behçet's disease during periodic follow-up

Summary Behcet's disease (BD) is a multisystemic disease that may involve all systems, the most common symptoms being oral and genital ulcerations and ocular involvement. Pulmonary involvement is not usually investigated in BD unless there is a specific complaint. In this study, pulmonary parameters and findings were investigated in BD patients at periodic follow-ups. A total of 112 subjects with a definitive diagnosis of BD from the Ocular Diseases Polyclinic, Behcet Disease Center, Ankara Training and Research Hospital and who had been referred to the Thoracic Diseases Polyclinic between January–October 2010 were evaluated. In the patients, the absence of active smoking, pregnancy, lactation and systemic steroid use were especially considered. A total of 112 patients between 14 and 61 years-old (53 male, 59 female) were enrolled in the study. The duration of follow-up varied between 1 and 22 years. The most commonly encountered symptom was hemoptysis observed in 18 subjects. 43 patients had mild obstruction, 9 patients had moderate obstruction, 4 patients had advanced obstruction and 4 patients showed restrictive alterations. Thoracic CT was normal for 83 subjects. Pulmonary involvement was observed as a pulmonary artery aneurysm in 4 patients and was treated. In BD, although anyone of PFT and CT values is normal, others may show pathological values. We believe that it would be useful in the follow-up to keep a regular record of the patient data and to perform PFT and, if possible, CT periodically.