Coexistence of Behçet's disease with ankylosing spondylitis and familial Mediterranean fever: a rare occurrence.
Behçet's disease (BD) and familial Mediterranean fever (FMF), which are two separate diseases sharing some clinical features, may also coexist in the same patient. Further investigations are needed to understand whether this coexistence is due to either chance or geographical distribution patterns of these diseases or to common etiopathogenetic characteristics. Spondylarthritis as part of the clinical picture in these two diseases has been questioned and probably it is not a prominent characteristic of any of them. We report a 35-year-old Tunisian man who had an association of BD, FMF and Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) B27 positive ankylosing spondylitis. Although that spondylarthritis is an infrequent joint involvement of FMF and BD, it must be looked for in case of association of these diseases.
Department of Internal medicine, Hedi Chaker Hospital, Sfax;
Makram
M
Frigui
Department of Internal medicine, Hedi Chaker Hospital, Sfax;
Manel
M
Kechaou
Department of Internal medicine, Hedi Chaker Hospital, Sfax;
Moez
M
Jallouli
Department of Internal medicine, Hedi Chaker Hospital, Sfax;
Neila
N
Kaddour
Laboratory of Human genetics, Tunis medicine college, Tunis, Tunisia.
Habiba Bouhamed
HB
Chaabouni
Department of Internal medicine, Hedi Chaker Hospital, Sfax;
Zouhir
Z
Bahloul
Behçet’s disease; ankylosing spondylitis, MEFV gene.; familial Mediterranean fever