TITLE:
Biologic Agents in Behçet’s Disease: Our Experience and Review of the Literature
AUTHORS:
Nesibe Karahan Yeşil, Hatice Şahin, Hatice Işık, Zuhal Örnek, Serpil Yazgan, Adem Tok, Yunus Emre Yandı, Metin Işık, İsmail Doğan
KEYWORDS:
Behçet’s Disease, Novel Biologic Agents, Refractory Patients
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Rheumatology and Autoimmune Diseases,
Vol.5 No.4,
October
27,
2015
ABSTRACT: Behcet’s disease (BD) is a large vessel vasculitis with a wide range of clinical manifestations. Some of these manifestation may be life threatening and rapid suppression of the inflammation with effective immunosuppressive agent is crucial. There are traditional drugs with different response rates and all have efficacy on different manifestations of the disease. The most frightening manifestations of the disease are ocular, neurologic, intestinal and vascular types of involvement. Besides benign and easily treated manifestations there are also refractory cases with complicated involvement. The novel biologic agents have been used for these resistant patients and favorable response rates have been reported. In this review, we have shared our experience with biologic agents in BD and also reviewed the literature for the efficacy and safety for these novel agents for refractory patients.