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Gastrointestinal manifestations of Behçet’s disease in Japan: a study of 43 patients

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Abstract

We analyzed the clinical gastrointestinal (GI) characteristics of Behçet’s disease (BD) patients in Japan. We retrospectively reviewed the clinical charts of 412 patients who fulfilled the 1987 Japanese criteria for BD and were treated in two university hospitals from July 1991 to December 2007. Forty-three patients (10.4 %) had BD-related GI lesions, which were shown by imaging examinations. Median age at BD diagnosis and onset of GI episodes were 29.6 and 31.0 years, respectively. The patients suffered from abdominal pain (30/43) and GI bleeding (18/43), while they had lower frequency of eye involvement and higher incidence of arthritis and vascular involvement than BD patients without GI lesions. The lesions were prevalent in the ileum (32/43) followed by cecum (21/43) and esophagus (9/43). The patients were treated with mesalazine and sulfasalazine (41/43), corticosteroids (32/43), immunosuppressants (13/43), and infliximab for 7 patients having refractory lesions, while 10 patients had surgical operation. Two patients died due to non-GI events during the observation. The diagnosis of BD was often difficult because of lack of eye involvement. Surgery is required for some patients in spite of intensive immunosuppressive therapies. Appropriate use of anti-TNF agents may be promising for the GI involvement.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by grants from the Behçet’s Disease Research Committee, Research on Specific Disease of the Health Science Research Grants from the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare (Y. Ishigatsubo). The source of funding played no role in the writing of the report or in the decision to publish the results; and by 2011–2013 grant-in-aid for scientific research (project No. 23591443) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Technology of Japan (to M. Takeno).

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rheumatology, National Hospital Organization Yokohama Medical Center, 3-60-2, Harajuku, Totsuka-ku, Yokohama, 245-8575, Japan

    Haruko Ideguchi & Rumiko Miyagi

  2. Rheumatic Diseases Center, Yokohama City University Medical Center, Yokohama, Japan

    Haruko Ideguchi, Akiko Suda & Shigeru Ohno

  3. Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Immunology, Yokohama City University Graduate School of Medicine, Yokohama, Japan

    Akiko Suda, Mitsuhiro Takeno, Atsuhisa Ueda & Yoshiaki Ishigatsubo

Authors
  1. Haruko Ideguchi
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  2. Akiko Suda
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  3. Mitsuhiro Takeno
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  4. Rumiko Miyagi
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  5. Atsuhisa Ueda
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  6. Shigeru Ohno
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  7. Yoshiaki Ishigatsubo
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Correspondence to Haruko Ideguchi.

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Ideguchi, H., Suda, A., Takeno, M. et al. Gastrointestinal manifestations of Behçet’s disease in Japan: a study of 43 patients. Rheumatol Int 34, 851–856 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-013-2838-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-013-2838-5

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