Background/Purpose: Behçet’s disease is a heterogeneous immune-mediated disease, with clinical variability across ethnicities and geographic locations. In this study, we describe and analyze the clinical characteristics of our multi-ethnic Behçet’s disease cohort and provide a comparative analysis comparing the International Criteria for Behçet’s Disease (ICBD) with the International Study Group (ISG) criteria in our patients.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed, in which the presence and absence of common Behçet’s disease manifestations were recorded in our cohort. Differences in disease characteristics between men and women, and between ICBD and ISG derived cohorts were determined using chi square tests and Yates’ correction. In addition, the associations between major and minor disease manifestations were also calculated.

Results: A total of 114 patients with a male to female ratio of ~ 1:4 were included. All patients met the ICBD criteria, including 76 who also met the ISG criteria. Over 95% of patients had recurrent genital ulcers, which is higher than generally reported. Retinitis was 5.3 times more common in men than women (p-value= 0.009), and arthralgia was 3.3 times more likely in women than men (p-value= 0.048). When comparing cohorts derived from the two different criteria, the ISG cohort had more skin manifestations (OR= 3.3, p-value= 0.0006). Acne was associated with ~8 times higher odds of developing retinitis in our patients (p-value= 0.0008), and superficial thrombophlebitis was associated with a trend for higher odds of developing uveitis (OR= 4.1, p-value= 0.057). Using the ICBD criteria, 38 additional patients were identified compared to only using the ISG criteria. Of these patients, 28 presented with only mucosal ulceration with or without joint involvement.

Conclusion: We characterize Behçet’s disease in a multi-ethnic cohort from North America. Using the ICBC criteria in the United States significantly increases the likelihood of identifying Behçet’s disease patients, particularly in patients with isolated mucosal involvement, who constitute a substantial subset of our patients in this region.

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ACR Meeting Abstracts - https://acrabstracts.org/abstract/behcets-disease-in-southeastern-michigan-a-single-center-comparative-study/