COEXISTENCE OF BEHCET'S DISEASE AND ANKYLOSING SPONDYLITIS: CASE REPORT AND REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Objective: To review the clinical characteristics, genetic features and treatments of the previously reported cases of Behcet's disease and ankylosing spondylitis with additional one case presentation. Method: Pubmed, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases were interrogated. Results: A total of 23 cases with coexistence of Behcet's disease and ankylosing spondylitis were found and afterwards reviewed. The majority of them involved male subjects (82.6%). All patients had mucocutaneous lesions and sacroiliitis, 54.5% of all patients had eye involvement, 68.4% had positive pathergy test, 75% had peripheral arthritis and 55.6% of patients developed ankylosing spondylitis after Behcet's disease. Tumor necrosis factor inhibitors were used in six cases. HLA-B51 was positive in 57.1% and HLA-B27 in 59.1% of all cases. Conclusion: Even though Behcet's disease has some clinical and genetic features in common with spondyloarthritis, there remains no sufficient evidence that phenotypes of these shared features are identical or these features are traced to a similar pathogenesis. By taking into account all previously reported cases and our presented case, we suggest that ankylosing spondylitis should be considered in differential diagnosis as a coexisting condition when a Behcet's disease patient with low back pain is being examined.