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

Behçet'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, Behçet 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.