title: Classifying patients with Behçet's disease for disease severity, using a discriminating analysis method.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Interleukin (IL)-8 has been shown to correlate with the activity of Behçet's disease (BD). The aim of this study was to develop tools as reliable as IL-8 levels in defining BD severity.
  
  
  METHODS
  In total, 32 patients with BD and 16 healthy controls were included in the study. Medical history, physical examination, routine laboratory investigations and measurement of serum IL-8 levels were performed. The patients were classified as groups I and II based on the serum IL-8 levels. The patients were then reassigned to groups based on the predictions through discriminating analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In addition to the differences between patient and control groups, the differences between groups I and II, group I and controls, and group II and controls were statistically significant. The discriminating analysis results showed that the patients had been assigned to groups I and II with 100% accuracy.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Discriminating analysis using clinical and routine laboratory findings indicated that 100% of the patients were accurately assigned to the same groups as their IL-8 levels indicated. This suggests that the classification made according to discriminating analysis using these routine variables is a reliable method in determination of the disease severity.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Medical Faculty, Abant Izzet Baysal University, Bolu, Turkey. polatmualla@gmail.com
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Polat
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Vahaboglu
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Onde
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eksioglu
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001528:Behcet Syndrome / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D016209:Interleukin-8 / Q000097:blood* / Q000235:genetics; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D016209:Interleukin-8