title: Demographical and Clinical Characteristics of Behcet's Disease in Southeastern Turkey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We aimed to determine the demographic and clinical features of patients with Behcet's disease (BD) in Southeastern Turkey.
  
  
  METHODS
  In this study, files of 132 patients with BD (76 females and 56 males) who were diagnosed with BD according to the International Study Group criteria at the Department of Dermatology of Dicle University Faculty of Medicine from 2005 to 2009 were evaluated retrospectively. Demographical and clinical characteristics of the cases were recorded.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mean age of the cases was 32.40 ± 9.4 years (range 15 - 59 years) and male/female ratio was 0.73. The mean age at diagnosis was 28.71 ± 9.1 years. Six cases were diagnosed as juvenile BD (4.45%). Oral aphthous lesions (100%) and genital ulcers (94%) were found to be the most common findings of the disease, followed by pathergy positivity (75%), papulopustular lesions (74.2%), erythema nodosum (43.2%), thrombophlebitis (6.8%) and extragenital ulcers (6.1%). Systemic involvement was noted as joint involvement in 79.5%, ocular involvement in 28.8%, vascular involvement in 9.8%, pulmonary involvement in 2.3%, neurologic involvement in 2.3% and genitourinary system involvement in 0.8%. There was no significant difference between mucocutaneous findings and systemic involvement ratios of male and female cases.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Demographic and clinical features of BD may vary according to geographical region, gender and ethnicity. We hope that this study will contribute to the epidemiologic data of BD which may exhibit different clinical and demographic features in different parts of the world.
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Dicle University Medical School, Diyarbakir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Bilal
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Sula
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Dicle University Medical School, Diyarbakir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ibrahim
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Batmaz
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Dicle University Medical School, Diyarbakir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Derya
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ucmak
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Dicle University Medical School, Diyarbakir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Ilyas
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Yolbas
authors.affiliation: Department of Dermatology, Dicle University Medical School, Diyarbakir, Turkey.
authors.forename: Sedat
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Akdeniz
keywords: Behcet’s disease; Epidemiology; Southeastern Turkey