Behçet's disease
Overview
Behçet's disease, or Behçet's syndrome, is a rare and poorly understood condition that results in inflammation of the blood vessels and tissues.
Symptoms
The main symptoms of Behçet's disease include: genital and mouth ulcersred, painful eyes and blurred visionacne-like spotsheadachespainful, stiff and swollen joints In severe cases, there's also a risk of serious and potentially life-threatening problems, such as permanentvision lossandstrokes. Most people with the condition experience episodes where their symptoms are severe (flare-ups or relapses), followed by periods where the symptoms disappear (remission). Symptom's often start in adults in their 20s and 30s, but can also start in childhood. Over time, some of the symptoms can settle down and become less troublesome, although they may never resolve completely. Read about the symptoms of Behçet's disease
Causes
The cause of Behçet's disease is unknown, although most experts believe it's an autoinflammatory condition. An autoinflammatory condition is where there are repeated episodes of inflammation in the body. In Behçet's disease, this involves inflammation of the blood vessels. This is thought to be caused by a problem with the immune system. It's not clear what triggers this problem with the immune system, but 2 things are thought to play a role: genes – Behçet's disease tends to be much more common in certain ethnic groups where the genes that are linked to the condition may be more commonenvironmental factors – although a specific environmental factor has not been identified, rates of Behçet's disease are lower in people from an at-risk ethnic group who live outside their native country Behçet's disease is more common in the Far East, the Middle East and Mediterranean countries such as Turkey and Israel. People of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Asian origin are thought to be most likely to develop the condition, although it can affect all ethnic groups.