The Clinical Course of Behcet's Disease in Pregnancy

Behcet's disease is a multisystem disorder that its main pathologic feature is vasculitis. Pregnancy, however, is a physiologic condition that causes many alterations and multisystem effects on the whole body systems. Consequently, it could be expected that an interaction would occur between two systemic processes when they associated. Hormonal alterations occurring during the pregnancy and some unknown immunological factors may be responsible of the alterations in the clinical course of the disease. The influence of pregnancy varies as exacerbation or remission between patients and during different pregnancies in the same patient. Previous studies and case reports show that pregnancy affects the clinical course of the disease as development of remissions in majority of the patients. However, it is speculated that pregnancy in general does not seem to affect markedly the natural course of Behcet's disease. (Turkderm 2009; 43 Suppl 2: 71-3)