Use of Oral Steroids and Immunosuppressant / Immunomodulators in the Treatment of Behcet's Disease-Related Uveitis

Behçet’s disease is a multisystemic inflammatory disease of unknown etiology. Unpredictable severe inflammatory ocular exacerbations are usual during the course of the disease and if these acute attacks did not treat in a fast and effective manner, permanent ocular complications would be inevitable. Immune suppressive drugs combined with high-dose systemic corticosteroids are used in resistant uveitis attacks with severe posterior segment involvement, while topical therapy is sufficient only in cases with anterior segment involvement. But unfortunately, refractory uveitis exacerbations could be seen despite the conventional immunosuppressive treatment.

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Sajal Ajmani ◽  
Durga Prasanna Misra ◽  
Deep Chandh Raja ◽  
Namita Mohindra ◽  
Vikas Agarwal

A young male was referred to us for evaluation of fever of unknown origin (FUO). He had history of recurrent painful oral ulcers for one year and moderate to high grade fever, pustulopapular rash, and recurrent genital ulcers for 6 months and hemoptysis for 3 days. He was detected to have intracardiac thrombi and pulmonary arterial thrombosis along with underlying Behcet’s disease (BD). Patient responded to high dose prednisolone (1 mg/Kg/day) along with monthly parenteral cyclophosphamide therapy. This case highlights the fact that BD is an important cause for pulmonary artery vasculitis with intracardiac thrombus formation, and such patients can present with FUO.


2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 1562.1-1563
Author(s):  
L. Sun ◽  
J. Liu ◽  
W. Zheng

Background:Vascular involvement is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity in Behcet’s Disease (BD)1. Surgical treatments are difficult for Vaculo-BD (VBD) patients due to the high risk of serious postoperative complications without effective and promptly perioperative immunotherapy2, 3. Anti-tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) therapy has been reported as a potential treatment in severe VBD, e.g. infliximab (IFX) and adalimumab (ADA). However, only few case reports are available regarding the fully humanized monoclonal antibody to TNF-α, golimumab (GOL), in the management of VBD4.Objectives:The objective of this study was to report the efficacy and safety of GOL for the treatment of severe and/or refractory VBD.Methods:We retrospectively analyzed the efficacy and safety profile of patients with severe and/or refractory VBD treated with GOL in our medical center between 2018 to 2020.Results:Nine VBD patients (8 male and 1 female) were enrolled, with a mean age and median course of 37±8.6 years and 72 months (range 12 to 300), respectively. Cardiac involvements (severe aortic regurgitation secondary to BD) were presented in 7 patients, including 2 patients with post-operative paravalvular leakage (PVL) after aortic valve replacement surgery. Multiple vascular lesions were documented in the other 2 patients, including one patient with life-threatening multiple pulmonary aneurysms, pulmonary thromboembolism and recurrent deep vein thrombosis, and another patient with abdominal aortic pseudoaneurysm and multiple artery stenosis and occlusion. Prior to GOL therapy, all patients experienced disease progression despite high-dose glucocorticoids combined with multiple immunosuppressants. Moreover, seven patients required effective and fast control of inflammation and a decrease of glucocorticoid dose during the perioperative period. They were treated with GOL, 50mg every 4 weeks, in combination with background low-or medium-dose glucocorticoids and immunosuppressants, for a median of 6 (range 3-15) months. After a mean duration of follow-up of 10 (range 2-6) months, all patients achieved improvement both in clinical symptoms and serum inflammation markers. The ESR level [4.88±4.94 mm/h vs 31.13±31.78mm/h, P<0.01] and CRP level [1.9 (0.11-3.73)mg/L vs 24.3 (0.4-85.57)mg/L, P<0.01] significantly decreased. The dosage of glucocorticoid[10 (0-15) vs 40 (0-100)mg/d, P<0.01] effectively tapered, indicating a potential steroid-sparing effect. No newly-onset aneurysm and recurrent venous thrombosis were observed. Also, one patient had a marked reduction in size and number of pulmonary aneurysms. No post-operative PVL was observed in the five patients after Bentall operation with a median follow-up of 10 months. One patient with severe aortic regurgitation remained stable and without surgical intervention with the treatment of GOL for 16 months. No severe complication occurred in one patient after underwent endovascular repair of abdominal aorta for 8 months. GOL was well-tolerated, and no serious adverse event was observed.Conclusion:Our results suggested that GOL is safe and effective for the treatment of patients with severe and / or refractory VBD. Further controlled studies are warranted to confirm the therapeutic potential of GOL in VBD patients.Disclosure of Interests:None declared


2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles F. Henderson ◽  
Robert A. Brodsky ◽  
Richard J. Jones ◽  
Stuart M. Levine

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Un Chul Park ◽  
Tae Wan Kim ◽  
Hyeong Gon Yu

Behçet’s disease (BD) is a chronic recurrent systemic inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology characterized by oral and genital ulcerations, skin lesions, and uveitis. The ocular involvement of BD, or Behçet’s uveitis (BU), is characterized by panuveitis or posterior uveitis with occlusive retinal vasculitis and tends to be more recurrent and sight threatening than other endogenous autoimmune uveitides, despite aggressive immunosuppression. Although pathogenesis of BD is unclear, researches have revealed that immunological aberrations may be the cornerstone of BD development. General hypothesis of BD pathogenesis is that inflammatory response is initiated by infectious agents or autoantigens in patients with predisposing genetic factors and perpetuated by both innate and acquired immunity. In addition, a network of immune mediators plays a substantial role in the inflammatory cascade. Recently, we found that the immunopathogenesis of BU is distinct from other autoimmune uveitides regarding intraocular effector cell profiles, maturation markers of dendritic cells, and the cytokine/chemokine environment. In addition, accumulating evidence indicates the involvement of Th17 cells in BD and BU. Recent studies on genetics and biologics therapies in refractory BU also support the immunological association with the pathogenesis of BU. In this review, we provide an overview of novel findings regarding the immunopathogenesis of BU.


Behçet’s Disease (BD) is a chronic multisystem vasculitis with unknown etiology, which is characterized by the triad of recurrent oral ulcers, genital ulcers, and iritis. The eye is one of the most commonly affected organs and typical ocular involvement is panuveitis with hypopyon and retinal vasculitis. The diagnosis is based on clinical evaluation including biomicroscopic and funduscopic examination. This article aims to review the clinical findings, diagnosis, and classification of BD.


2020 ◽  
Vol 90 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Despoina Moumtzi ◽  
Marianna Kakoura

Behcet’s disease (BD) is a vasculitis of unknown etiology. It is often correlated with thrombophilic factors such as V Leiden. Pulmonary involvement is reported in 1-10% of patients. The most common manifestations are pulmonary aneurysms while pulmonary embolism is a rare complication. A 41-year old man with BD and V Leiden heterozygosity complained of pleurodynia and fever. Pleurodynia deteriorated in the following days and PE was confirmed by CT angiography, without the presence of aneurysms. After the exclusion of the antiphospholipid syndrome, a therapeutic dose of apixaban was initiated. Two weeks later, pleurodynia relapsed in combination with pleural effusion unilaterally. These findings were attributed to disease exacerbation. For this reason, we decided to enhance the immunosuppressive therapy. Six months later, CTPA showed complete remission of the clots. Vasculitis predisposes to thrombosis with or without coexisting thrombophilia. Clinicians should include them in their differential diagnosis and provide personalized treatment, based on immunosuppressants.


2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-196
Author(s):  
Ana Bittencourt Detanico ◽  
Marcelo Luiz Brandão ◽  
Ly de Freitas Fernandes ◽  
Carolina Parreira Ribeiro Camelo ◽  
Juliano Ricardo Santana dos Santos

Behcet's disease is form of systemic vasculitis of unknown etiology. One surprising feature is that arterial involvement is less common in this disease than venous forms, accounting for 1 to 7% of patients. In 7 to 30% of cases the vascular symptoms precede the clinical diagnosis of Behcet. We describe the case of a patient with Thromboangiitis Obliterans who was treated with lumbar sympathectomy and an aortobiiliac bypass. Around 1 year later he was diagnosed with Behcet's disease after presenting with oral ulcers, genital ulcers and scaling lesions on the hands.


2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 168-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordana Zlatanovic ◽  
Svetlana Jovanovic ◽  
Dragan Veselinovic ◽  
Maja Zivkovic

Bacground/Aim. Behcet's disease is genetically conditioned, immune-mediated multisystem occlusive vasculitis of small blood vessels, espesially venules, of unknown etiology. The aim of this study was to analyze the clinical features, disease activity and therapy of the patients with ophthalmologic manifestation of Behcet's disease. Methods. In this study symptoms and signs of the disease were analyzed both prospectively and retrospectively during the active manifestation of the disease. The diagnosis was reached according to the International Criteria for Behcet's Disease (2006). The treatment effects were evaluated based on the presence of the best corrected visual acuity and the inflammation of the vitreous humour before and after the application of our therapeutic method. The applied therapeutic modality consisted of the primary application of corticosteroid therapy in the active stage of the disease complemented with the choice of drugs from the immunosuppressive group. In this study there drugs were cyclosporine or methotrexate. A treatment refractory patients with poor vision prognosis were treated with a third drug, the biological preparation infliximab, a tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-?) antagonist. Results. The mean age of 11 patients with ophthalmologic manifestation of Behcet's disease was 50.6 years. HLA B-5(51) was positive in 81% of the patients while 36% of the patients had positive pathergy test. Changes in affected eyes included vitritis (100%), posterior uveitis (45%), panuveitis (54%), retinal vasculitis (54%), cystoid macular edema (54%), and cystoid degeneration (18%). Increased intraocular pressure was observed in 27% of the patients. There was no statistically significant variation in disease activity parameters in any of the patients (p > 0.05). A statistically significant improvement in visual acuity (p < 0.05) and a high statistically significant decrease of inflammation of the worst affected eyes (p = 0.001) were detected. Conclusion. Our therapeutic method is useful for producing the optimal therapeutic plan for the acute - chronic stage of the difficult ophtamological manifestation of Behcet's desease as well as the prevention of relapse. However the high cost of the therapy and the potential complications should be taken into consideration when prescribing this therapy, especially a TNF-? antagonist.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nari Seo ◽  
Hyunjun Lee ◽  
Myung Jin Oh ◽  
Ga Hyeon Kim ◽  
Sang Gil Lee ◽  
...  

Behcet’s disease (BD) is an immune disease characterized by chronic and relapsing systemic vasculitis of unknown etiology, which can lead to blindness and even death. Despite continuous efforts to discover biomarkers for accurate and rapid diagnosis and optimal treatment of BD, there is still no signature marker with high sensitivity and high specificity. As the link between glycosylation and the immune system has been revealed, research on the immunological function of glycans is being actively conducted. In particular, sialic acids at the terminus of glycoconjugates are directly implicated in immune responses, cell–cell/pathogen interactions, and tumor progression. Therefore, changes in sialic acid epitope in the human body are spotlighted as a new indicator to monitor the onset and progression of immune diseases. Here, we performed global profiling of N-glycan compositions derived from the sera of 47 healthy donors and 47 BD patients using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) to preferentially determine BD target glycans. Then, three sialylated biantennary N-glycans were further subjected to the separation of linkage isomers and quantification using porous graphitized carbon-liquid chromatography (PGC-LC)/multiple reaction monitoring (MRM)-MS. We were able to successfully identify 11 isomers with sialic acid epitopes from the three glycan compositions consisting of Hex5HexNAc4NeuAc1, Hex5HexNAc4Fuc1NeuAc1, and Hex5HexNAc4NeuAc2. Among them, three isomers almost completely distinguished BD from control with high sensitivity and specificity with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.945, suggesting the potential as novel BD biomarkers. In particular, it was confirmed that α2,3-sialic acid at the terminus of biantennary N-glycan was the epitope associated with BD. In this study, we present a novel approach to elucidating the association between BD and glycosylation by tracing isomeric structures containing sialic acid epitopes. Isomer-specific glycan profiling is suitable for analysis of large clinical cohorts and may facilitate the introduction of diagnostic assays for other immune diseases.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-99
Author(s):  
Rhodri Smith ◽  
Robert J. Moots ◽  
Mariam Murad ◽  
Graham R. Wallace

Abstract Behçet’s disease (BD) is a multisystem inflammatory disorder of unknown etiology, characterized by oral and genital ulceration, with other complications including eye, skin, joint, and central nervous system (CNS) lesions. Diagnosis is based on clinical findings, which may differ between patients. There is a strong genetic basis for BD; however, only a few genes have been associated with the disease across the geographical spread of BD. In this article, we discuss the history and combination of genes involved in this complex disease in relation to the geographical range and present our view that the disease has developed from a Darwinian perspective, with different gene polymorphisms that affect the same biological pathway. Moreover, these mutations individually are protective mechanisms against the disease relevant to each region, which affected both archaic and modern humans.


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