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| LETTER TO EDITOR |
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| Year : 2004 | Volume
: 52
| Issue : 3 | Page : 256 |
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Ocular manifestations of Behcet's disease in Indian patients.
A Salman, P Parmar
Correspondence Address:
A Salman
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
PMID: 15510474 
Keywords: Behcet Syndrome, complications, Eye Diseases, etiology, Female, Humans, India, Male
How to cite this article:
Salman A, Parmar P. Ocular manifestations of Behcet's disease in Indian patients. Indian J Ophthalmol 2004;52:256 |
How to cite this URL:
Salman A, Parmar P. Ocular manifestations of Behcet's disease in Indian patients. Indian J Ophthalmol [serial online] 2004 [cited 2020 May 30];52:256. Available from: http://www.ijo.in/text.asp?2004/52/3/256/14575 |
Dear Editor,
The article by Rohtagi and Singhal on "Ocular manifes-tations of Behcet's disease in Indian Patients"[1] was interesting. In their series, only two patients had evidence of iridocyclitis (one active and one healed) and no patient had evidence of posterior uveitis. From this, they conclude that "the disease occurs in a much milder form in India and is primarily mucocutaneous and arthritic" The absence of posterior segment pathology in their study group is ascribed to female preponderance and early diagnosis. We believe that these conclusions are erroneous. The low prevalence of uveitis and the total absence of posterior uveitis in this study are more likely due to the fact that all cases in the study presented to the department of dermatology. Thus, these patients were obviously more likely to have mucocutaneous lesions and less likely to have ocular complaints. If the authors had also included those cases who presented to their department of ophthalmology with intraocular inflammation and were then diagnosed to be suffering from Behcet's disease, a more accurate picture of ocular Behcet's disease would have been possible.
Although Behcet's disease in Indians is indeed rare (0.09% of all cases seen at the Uvea clinic at our hospital were diagnosed as Behcet's disease), these patients did have severe anterior and posterior uveitis, which was sometimes unresponsive to corticosteroid therapy and potentially blinding. As the authors themselves state, "the burden of diagnostic recognition of Behcet's disease often lies with the ophthalmologist as many patients first present to them with ocular symptoms," it is difficult to understand why they studied cases referred from the department of dermatology alone.
| References | |  |
| 1. | Rohtagi J, Singal A. Ocular manifestations of Behcet's disease in Indian patients. Indian J Ophthalmol 2003;51:309-13.  |
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