Neurological Manifestation of Behçet’s Disease in a Tunisian Cohort

Behçet’s disease (BD) is a multi-systemic vasculitis characterized by attacks of acute inflammation, which can affect multiple area of the body. Neurological involvement known as “neuro-Behcet’s” (NB) is rare and is one of the main causes of long-term morbidity and mortality. The aim of our work was to study the epidemiological, clinical, paraclinical and therapeutic characteristics of patients with BD with neurological involvement. We conducted a retrospective study of NB patients in the Neurology and Internal Medicine departments of the Military Instruction Hospital of Tunis. We collected 35 patients from a population of 150 patients with BD. Neurological manifestations had inaugurated the BD in 55% of the cases. Ninety-four percent of patients had central nervous system involvement and 6% had peripheral polyradiculoneuritis. Parenchymal involvement occurred in 85% of cases and non-parenchymal NB in 3% of cases. Brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed predominant demyelinating lesions in periventricular and brain stem in 15 patients, a pseudotumor appearance in 3 patients, and vascular lesions in 2 patients. All patients received corticosteroid and 30 patients were treated