Behçet's Disease and Surgical Intervention

Abstract

Behçet's Disease (BD) is a systemic disorder with an unknown etiopathogenesis. The need for clinical criteria in the establishment of diagnosis is of great importance. We present the case of a 27-year-old man with BD, who had a surgical operation during the active period of his disease and experienced subsequent complications. Cutaneous hyper-reactivity response to minor cutaneous trauma--the pathergy phenomenon--is found in most patients with BD. Theoretically, major traumas may lead to major reactions in the skin or any of the organs. In practice, we observed that while there was a severe inflammatory reaction--histopathologically a superficial perivascular dermatitis--which developed at the incision site, the systemic symptoms of the disease increased in spite of intensive treatment of the condition.

Intestinal Behçet's Disease: A True Inflammatory Bowel Disease or Merely an Intestinal Complication of Systemic Vasculitis?

“… 133 Especially, because pathergy is often seen with BD patients, ulcerations at the site of surgical incision can develop. 134 …”

Wound healing in Behçet's syndrome

“…2,3 Also, severe erythema and induration lasting for 10 days at the surgical incision site in a BS patient has been reported, as well as exacerbations of arthritis after synovial biopsies. 4,5 On the other hand, surgeons with experience in operating on BS patients, except for the case report mentioned above, 4 usually do not observe a noteworthy alteration in the healing of surgical scars (H. Tü zü n, personal communication).…”

Colonic perforation in Behçet’s syndrome

“…The pathergy phenomenon seen in BS, that is a cutaneous hyperreactivity following minor trauma [12] , means that patients with BS are prone to problems at the incision site [13] . Fortunately, our patient has not experienced any such complications.…”