The association of Behçet's disease with myelodysplastic syndrome in Japan: a review of the literature.
OBJECTIVE
[corrected] To determine the clinical characteristics of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS)-associated Behçet's disease (BD) in Japan.


METHODS
54 Japanese cases of MDS-associated BD obtained from the literature and from our own clinical experience were reviewed. The clinical features of MDS-associated BD were compared with those of the 1991 nationwide BD survey in Japan.


RESULTS
In MDS-associated BD, the average age at onset was 42.6 years, which was 6.9 years later than for all BD patients; females developed disease more frequently than males (male: female ratio = 0.80). In MDS-associated BD cases, the occurrence of eye lesions was significantly lower, the frequency of intestinal lesions was markedly higher, and the rate of HLA-B51 positivity was lower than that in all BD. BD and MDS developed nearly simultaneously in 49.0% of cases; BD preceded MDS in 31.4% of the cases. The distribution of the age at BD onset showed two peaks, one in the 3rd decade and the other in the 6th decade. Females were more likely to develop younger-onset disease, while men were more likely to develop older-onset MDS-associated BD. Furthermore, in the older-onset group, BD was diagnosed together with or after the diagnosis of MDS, while half of the younger-onset group developed BD earlier than MDS.


CONCLUSIONS
MDS-associated BD patients form a distinct subset of patients. There may, in fact, be two major groups of MDS-associated BD patients based on age, gender, and temporal relationship of the two diseases.
Tada
Y
Y
Department of Internal Medicine, Saga Medical School, Saga, Japan. taday@cc.saga-u.ac.jp
Koarada
S
S
Haruta
Y
Y
Mitamura
M
M
Ohta
A
A
Nagasawa
K
K
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001528:Behcet Syndrome / Q000150:complications* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000473:pathology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007564:Japan; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009190:Myelodysplastic Syndromes / Q000150:complications* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000473:pathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012744:Sex Ratio