Management of patients with Behçet's disease during the COVID-19 pandemic

Behçet's disease is a disease characterized by chronic inflammatory vasculitis. In the clinical symptoms of Behçet's disease, many immunosuppressive and immunomodulatory drugs are used. The suspicion that drugs used in chronic disease treatments such as Behçet's disease during pandemic will increase the risk of transmission of COVID-19 disease, and that the disease may progress more lethally in these patients after the infection caused clinicians to worry. As far as we know, there is no study in the literature about the management of patients with Behçet's disease in the pandemic period. Fifty-four patients with Behçet's disease who were admitted to the dermatology outpatient clinic between 11 March and July 14, 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. In this pandemic period, 44 of 54 patients were recommended to continue their previous treatment. While the dose of medication used by 7 patients was reduced, it was decided to change the treatment of 3 patients. No life-threatening activation was observed. None of the patients developed COVID-19 disease. This article is important in terms of being the first study in the literature examining the treatment of patients with Behçet's disease during the COVID-19. In this period, we know that the treatment practices in chronic diseases change frequently daily, and in this respect, we hope that our study will provide a perspective to other dermatology clinics in terms of the treatment of Behçet's disease during the pandemic.