RESEARCH ARTICLE
Behçet’s Disease: an Insight from a Cardiologist’s Point of View
Giuseppe Cocco1, *, Armen Yuri Gasparyan2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2010Volume: 4
First Page: 63
Last Page: 70
Publisher ID: TOCMJ-4-63
DOI: 10.2174/1874192401004010063
Article History:
Received Date: 7/11/2009Revision Received Date: 21/11/2009
Acceptance Date: 7/12/2009
Electronic publication date: 23/2/2010
Collection year: 2010
open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Behçet's disease (BD) is an enigmatic inflammatory disorder, with vasculitis (perivasculitis) underlying pathophysiology of its multisystemic affections. Venous pathology and thrombotic complications are hallmarks of BD. However, it has been increasingly recognized that cardiac involvement and arterial complications (aneurysms, pseudoaneurysms, rupture and thrombosis) are important part of the course of BD. Pericarditis, myocardial (diastolic and/or systolic dysfunction), valvular and coronary (thrombosis, aneurysms, rupture) involvement, intracardiac thrombi (predominantly right-sided) are, probably, the most frequent cardiac manifestations. Treatment of cardiovascular involvement in BD is largely empirical and aimed at suppression of vasculitis. The most challenging seems to be the treatment of arterial aneurysms and thromboses due to the associated risk of bleedings. Cardiologists should always bear in mind potential threats of (a)symptomatic cardiovascular involvement in BD.
