Relationship between presence of erythema nodosum and clinical findings of behçet's disease

Introduction and Purpose Behçet's disease is a heterogeneous vasculitis with predominantly mucocutaneous findings characterized by unexplained neutrophilic hyperfunction and autoinflammatory responses. Eritema nodosum (EN) is a skin lesion seen in Behcet's disease with papulopustular eruption and acne-like lesions. In this study, we examined the association of EN with other clinical findings of Behçet's disease. Matherial and Method We have included Behçet patients who were followed up in our polyclinic from January 2012 to April 2017. We retrospectively reviewed these patients for age, gender, clinical findings and treatment. We compared patients in two groups; patients with EN and patients without EN. Results We did not find any statistically significant difference between the EN and the non-EN groups in terms of clinical findings, but we found that the need for immunosuppressive and immunmodulator therapy was statistically significant in the group with EN. Immunosuppressive and modulator (OSM) treatment needs were 51% in the non-EN group and 64% in the EN group (p = 0.005). Discussion Behçet's disease is a heterogeneous disease. According to the findings of our study, in the patient group with EN; we observed that although a direct association with a specific organ involvement, venous or arterial involvement and eye involvement could not be demonstrated, it also increased the need for immunosuppressive and immunmodulator therapy. We observed that the presence of EN may be a risk factor for severe clinical course, since patients with severe clinical findings need more immunosuppressive and immunmodulator therapy. Conclusion: EN may be a risk factor for more severe clinical course in BD. Key words: Erythema nodosum, Behçet's disease, clinical findings, immunosuppressive therapy