[Behçet's disease. 316 cases].

The authors have reviewed the records of 316 patients with Behcet's disease diagnosed between 1981 and 1989 in the Internal Medicine Department of Casablanca's University Hospital, Morocco. Males aged between 20 and 40 years (78 percent) were most frequently affected (71 percent of the cases). All patients presented with muco-cutaneous lesions, including aphthous stomatitis (100 percent) and genital ulcers (85 percent). Skin hyperirritability was present in 77 percent. Ocular lesions were frequent (72 percent) and led to blindness in 88 patients. Articular manifestations occupied third rank in our series, with 60 percent of the cases. Three patients showed polyarthritis deformans, with destructive lesions in two cases and associated with Sjögren's syndrome in one case. Thrombophlebitis was present in 69 patients (superior vena cava thrombosis in 8 patients and Budd-Chiari syndrome in one), and it was complicated by pulmonary infarction in 6 cases. Other vascular lesions included middle cerebral artery thrombosis (1 case), cerebral arterial aneurysm (1 case) and pulmonary arterial aneurysm (1 case). Neurological manifestations were present in 50 patients (16 percent), in 13 of them related to mild intracranial hypertension. Ulcerative colitis was diagnosed in 2 cases and proteinuria in 4 others, with a nephrotic syndrome in 2 cases.