Behçet's disease: A profile of mucocutaneous features

Behçet's disease (BD) is a systemic inflammatory disease involving many systemic lesions characterized by vasculitis as a common basic pathologic process. Mucocutaneous (MC) features are considered as the diagnostic hallmarks.

To retrospectively determine the epidemiological and clinical aspects of BD mucocutaneous symptoms in Tunisia compared to those found in the literature.

Twenty-eight patients were involved in a single-center dermatological recruitment for a 27-year period (1980-2007) on the basis of international BD criteria.

Our series included 19 males and 9 females. The mean age at onset was 28 years and the mean age at diagnosis was 37.9 years. The frequency of MC manifestations was as follows: oral ulcers (100%), genital ulcers (92.8%), other cutaneous signs (82.1%) such as papulopustular lesions (53.5%), and dermohypodermal nodes (11.53%), aphthous cutaneous ulcers (17.8%), and other lesions (leg ulcer: three cases, erythema multiform: one case, and infected pyodermatitis: one case). Systemic manifestations were present in 18 patients.

MC manifestations are hallmarks of the disease and usually the onset symptoms. The frequencies of the various MC signs seen in our study broadly match those found in the literature.