[Behçet disease. 162 cases]

We report 162 cases of Behçet's disease, seen at the Internal Medicine Unit of Ibn Sina Hospital at Rabat, between January 1983 and June 1996. This series concerned 124 men et 38 women, Moroccans, whose mean age at first hospitalization was 32 years, and mean age at disease onset was 26 years. Diagnosis of Behçet's disease was established on Mason and Barnes and/or International Study Group for Behçet's Disease criteria. There was a muco-cutaneous involvement in 100%, eye involvement in 50%, joint involvement in 45%, neurological symptoms in 43.2%, vascular involvement in 62.34%, thoracic involvement symptoms in 13%, digestive involvement in 8 cases, cardiac involvement in 5 patients, long term fever in 5 patients, and one case of amyloidosis. We compared our results to the literature and we noticed that our series had an elevated frequency of neurological involvement, mostly benign intra-cranial hypertension and deep vein thrombosis. We also found that gut involvement was particularly low.