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Turkish Journal of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Background/aim: Ocular involvement is a major cause of morbidity in Behçet’s disease (BD), and its diagnosis may be challenging, particularly for patients with isolated ocular manifestations or incomplete fulfillment of diagnostic criteria. Increased common femoral vein (CFV) wall thickness measured by Doppler ultrasonography (US) has previously been shown to be a sensitive and specific marker for systemic BD. This study aimed to evaluate whether CFV wall thickness measurement may serve as a supportive tool in distinguishing Behçet’s uveitis (BU) from other forms of inflammatory uveitis.

Materials and methods: This retrospective study included 45 patients with BU fulfilling the International Study Group criteria for BD and 72 patients with non-BD uveitis of infectious and noninfectious etiologies. Bilateral CFV wall thickness was measured using color Doppler US by a radiologist blinded to the clinical data. Group comparisons were performed and multivariate linear regression analyses were used to assess whether BU was independently associated with increased CFV wall thickness after adjustment for potential confounders. Exploratory analyses additionally evaluated the effects of disease duration and systemic treatment status.

Results: Mean CFV wall thickness was significantly higher in the BU group than in the non-BU group in both extremities (p < 0.001). BU remained an independent predictor of increased CFV wall thickness after adjustment for sex and venous Doppler findings. Additional exploratory analyses adjusting for disease duration and current systemic treatment status did not change this association.

Conclusion: CFV wall thickness measured by Doppler US was significantly increased in patients with BU compared to other forms of inflammatory uveitis. These findings suggest that CFV wall thickness may serve as a supportive or adjunctive imaging marker in selected cases to assist in the differential diagnosis of ocular BD.

Author ORCID Identifier

SEDA KUTLUĞ AĞAÇKIRAN: 0000-0002-3398-3686

ESRA KARDEŞ: 0000-0002-9238-5627

ABDULBAKİ AĞAÇKIRAN: 0000-0002-5119-5843

HANERRAFİ HANER DİRESKENELİ: 0000-0003-2598-5806

FATMA ALİBAZ-ÖNER: 0000-0002-6653-1758

DOI

10.55730/1300-0144.6209

Keywords

Behcet's Disease, diagnostic imaging, differential diagnosis, ultrasonography, uveitis

First Page

761

Last Page

768

Publisher

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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