Background/Purpose: Behcet’s disease is a systemic inflammatory disease which commonly presents with episodes of acute inflammation, oral and genital ulcers, uveitis and skin lesions. It presents most commonly during the second and third decades of life, therefore frequently involves women during their reproductive years. The objective of our work was to determine the effect of Behcet’s disease on pregnancy by evaluating the prevalence of fetal and maternal complications through systematic review and meta-analysis.

Methods: We performed a systematic review of the literature using Medline, Web of Science, and the Cochrane library from their inceptions until March 26, 2021. Studies were included if they presented the frequency of complications in cohorts of pregnant patients with a diagnosis of Behcet’s disease. Studies were selected by two independent reviewers and statistics were performed using REVMAN5.4.

Results: 6638 studies were identified of which 16 were included. Among patients’ with Behcet’s disease during pregnancy the prevalence of caesarean section was 23% (CI 10-36% , Figure 1), pre-term birth 11% (CI 8-15%, Figure 2), miscarriage 11% (CI 8-14%), pre-eclampsia 4% (CI 3-6%), intrauterine death 4% (CI 2-7%), new hypertension 6% (2-10%) and 27% of women reported worsening of symptoms related to Behcet’s disease during pregnancy (CI 20-34 , Figure 3).

Conclusion: Approximately one quarter of patients experienced worsening of symptoms related to Behcet’s disease during pregnancy, 1 in 10 had a pre-term delivery and almost 1 in 4 delivered their baby by caesarean section. These results show the importance of close monitoring of patients with Behcet’s disease during pregnancy – both for pregnancy complications and for worsening Behcet’s symptoms.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/behcets-disease-a-meta-analysis-of-pregnancy-outcomes/