Abstract

FERNANDES, Helena; SILVA, Conceição Santos; CASANOVA, Gabriela  and  PEIXOTO, Ana Catarina. Behçet’s disease: A difficult disease in terms of diagnosis in an adolescent patient. Nascer e Crescer [online]. 2017, vol.26, n.4, pp.240-242. ISSN 0872-0754.

Introduction: Behçet’s disease (BD) is a chronic multisystem disorder. The diagnosis is made only by using diagnostic criteria and children are rarely affected. Case report: A 17-years-old adolescent with recurrent oral aphthous ulcers since 13 years of age, without any other symptoms. Differential diagnoses such as infections, hypovitaminosis, food allergy and celiac disease were excluded. In order to diagnose Behçet’s disease, the pathergy test was done and it was negative. At the age of 16, the adolescent developed facial papulopustules and acneiform nodules, undistinguishable from acne, and at 17 years of age, she developed a genital aphthous ulceration. The patient was sent to a pediatric rheumatology physician, and, considering a likely BD, started a treatment with oral colchicine, with reduction of the number and recurrence of oral aphthous ulcers. This patient has clinical criteria to be diagnosed with BD. Discussion: This clinical report is a reminder of how important it is to continuously follow patients because of the insidious character of some diseases, including rheumatic, and highlights that BD can be hard to diagnosis in the paediatric population.

Keywords : Behçet’s disease; diagnosis; therapeutics.

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