Four cases of HLA-A*26(+)/B*51(−) intestinal Behçet’s disease without abdominal symptoms

Abstract

Behçet’s disease (BD) is a systemic inflammatory disorder and involvement of the bowel leads to a poor prognosis due to perforation of intestinal ulcers and penetration of ulceration into surrounding organs. We describe the clinical features of 4 Japanese BD patients (1 male) with intestinal lesions detected by colonoscopy, and the 4 patients had no abdominal complaints at their first admission to our hospital from 2003 to 2005. Case 1 was a 74-year-old woman, Case 2 was a 25-year-old woman, Case 3 was a 32-year-old woman, and Case 4 was a 32-year-old man. The characteristics of BD which they all had in common were recurrent oral aphthous ulcers, erythema nodosum, acneiform eruption, genital ulcers, polyarthritis and gastrointestinal lesions without abdominal complaints. None of these patients were positive for HLA-B*51, but all of them had HLA-A*26. Our findings suggest that screening colonoscopy is important for diagnosing intestinal BD in order to achieve a good prognosis.

Keywords:

• Behçet’s disease
• abdominal symptoms
• HLA-A26
• intestinal lesion
• neural lesion

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our appreciation for gastroenterological advice to Dr. Bun-ei Iizuka (Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, Institute of Gastroenterology, Tokyo Women’s Medical University, Tokyo), and for technical advice on colonoscopy to Dr. Norio Tamai and Dr. Hironari Shindo (Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine and Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, Department of Surgery, Aoyama Hospital, Tokyo Women’s Medical University, respectively).

Conflict of interest

None.