Behçet's Syndrome

In 1937, Hulusi Behçet, a Turkish dermatologist, published his observations on two patients with recurrent oral and genital aphthous ulcerations and hypopyon iritis (pus in the anterior chamber of the eye).1 He proposed a viral origin for the new syndrome, but this has never been established and the cause of this unusual disease is still unknown. Besides the original triple-symptom complex, other important manifestations may include recurrent synovitis, cutaneous pustules or nodules resembling erythema nodosum, meningoencephalitis, arterial aneurysms in the systemic and pulmonary circulation, phlebitis of large and small veins, and discrete ulcerations of the gut that can bleed or . . .