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Objectives: To determine the prevalence of neurological involvement in Behcet's disease in a prospective study, and to describe the clinical patterns of neurological presentation in this disease in patients attending a multidisciplinary clinic in Baghdad.Methods: All patients attending the clinic who fulfilled the international study group criteria for the diagnosis of Behcet's disease were studied during a two year period starting in April 1999. Patients were assessed neurologically by a neuro-Behcetologist. All those with clinical neurological manifestations were sent for CSF examination, cranial magnetic resonance imaging, and magnetic resonance venography and were followed up to explore the patterns of neurological relapse.Results: 140 patients with Behcet's disease were studied. Their mean age was 34.2 years (range 16 to 66); 105 (75%) were men and 35 (25%) were women. The mean duration of the disease was 4.2 years (range 0.4 to 26). Twenty patients (14%) had neurological involvement (neuro-Behcet's disease); 14 of these (70%) were men and six (30%) women. The mean age at the first neurological presentation was 34.1 years. The mean duration of follow up of patients with neuro-Behcet's disease was 20.7 months. Ten patients with neuro-Behcet's disease (50%) presented with parenchymal CNS involvement, six (30%) with intracranial hypertension, and four (20%) with a mixed pattern of both parenchymal CNS involvement and intracranial hypertension.Conclusions: Careful neurological assessment of patients with Behcet's disease may show a relatively high prevalence of neuro-Behcet features, and though the clinical patterns of presentation are characteristic a mixed pattern may occur. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The clinical features of 60 patients (45 male, 15 female) with Behçet's disease (BD) are reported in this prospective study. Ninety seven per cent had mouth ulceration, 83% genital ulceration, 75% skin lesions, 48% ocular involvement, 48% synovitis, 17% thrombophlebitis, and 22% of the male patients had epidiymitis, while constitutional symptoms were reported by 63%. The arthritis was intermittent, self limiting, and non-destructive, involving large joints, mainly the knees and ankles. The pathergy test was positive in 37 of 52 patients with BD, and negative in all 120 healthy controls and in 20 healthy volunteers who possessed the HLA-B51 antigen. HLA-B51 was present in 32 of 52 (62%) patients with BD compared with 51 of 175 (29%) unrelated normal controls. Both the pathergy and HLA-B51 tests were negative in four of 52 patients with BD. Behçet's disease is not uncommon in Iraq. Practising physicians, dermatologists, and ophthalmologists must be more aware of its existence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A prevalence survey for rheumatoid arthritis was carried out during the summer of 1975 in persons aged 16 years and over in areas of Iraq representative of differences in geography and ethnicity. Definite rheumatoid arthritis was observed in 1% of the 6999 individuals studied, but differences in occurrence rates in relation to various associated characteristics were not detected. It is concluded that present rheumatological services in Iraq have not developed in response to the magnitude of the existing burden. Morning stiffness was reported fairly frequently by individuals without rheumatoid arthritis, but the significance of this observation is not easy to determine. Raynaud's phenomenon was also recorded, but comparative evaluation of the findings is not possible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]