Objective. To report the long-term outcome of neurologic involvement in patients with Behçet's disease (BD).Methods. We performed a retrospective analysis of 115 patients who fulfilled the international criteria for BD (57% male; median age 37 years [interquartile range (IQR) 30-46 years]) and had neuro-BD (NBD) after exclusion of cerebral venous thrombosis. Factors associated with relapse of NBD, inability to perform activities of daily living, and mortality were assessed.Results. Seventy-eight patients (68%) presented with acute NBD and 37 (32%) presented with a progressive course. The HLA-B51 allele was carried by 49% of the patients. Overall, 46 of 115 patients (40%) had severe disability at baseline, represented by a Rankin score of >3. The 5-and 7-year event-free survival rates were 65% and 53%, respectively. In multivariate analysis, a positive HLA-B51 status was independently associated with the risk of NBD relapse, with an odds ratio (OR) of 3.6 (95% confidence interval [95% CI] 1.5-9.1). Conclusion. Our findings indicate that NBD is a severe condition in which patients with the HLA-B51 allele appear to experience a worse prognosis. After a median followup of 73 months (IQR

Optic neuritis could lead to severe visual impairment despite corticosteroids. Our aim was to evaluate the rate of visual improvement in patients treated with plasma exchange (PLEX) for severe steroid unresponsive optic neuritis and to identify predictive factors of outcome. Thirty-four patients (41 optic nerves damaged) with remaining visual acuity of 0.1 or less despite steroid pulse therapy were treated with PLEX from September 2010 to May 2015. Demographic and clinical neuro-ophthalmic findings, and spectral domain-optical coherence tomography data before PLEX treatment were analyzed. The mean symptom duration before PLEX was 34.6 days (median 28 days; range 6-92 days). After PLEX, the median final visual acuity was 0.8 and in 56 % of cases, final acuity was 0.5 or better. Past history of ipsilateral optic neuritis was associated significantly with poor outcome defined as final acuity less than 0.5. No significant difference in the visual outcome after PLEX was found between multiple sclerosis and neuromyelitis optica. In conclusion, this observational study showed that PLEX as second-line therapy led to a functionally important visual recovery in more than half patients with severe optic neuritis.

To report the safety and efficacy of anti-tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) therapy in severe and refractory neuro-Behçet disease (NBD) patients.Observational, multicenter study including 17 BD patients (70.6% of male, with a median age of 39.3 [24–60] years), with symptomatic parenchymal NBD, refractory to previous immunosuppressant and treated with anti-TNFα (infliximab 5 mg/kg [n = 13] or adalimumab [n = 4]). Complete remission was defined by the disappearance of all neurological symptoms and by the improvement of radiological abnormalities at 12 months.Overall improvement following anti-TNF was evidenced in 16/17 (94.1%) patients including 6 (35.3%) complete response and 10 (58.8%) partial response. The median time to achieve remission was 3 months (1–6). The median Rankin score was 2 (1–4) at the initiation of anti-TNFα versus 1 (0–4) at the time of remission (P = 0.01). Corticosteroids have been stopped in 4 (23.5%) patients, and reduced by more than 50% as compared with the dosage at baseline in 10 (58.8%) patients. Side effects occurred in 23.5% of patients and required treatment discontinuation in 17% of cases.TNF blockade represents an effective therapeutic approach for patients with severe and refractory NBD, a difficult to treat population.