Difficult To Diagnose
Diagnosing Behcet's disease is difficult because no specific test confirms it. Less than half of patients initially thought to have Behcet's disease actually have it. When a patient reports symptoms, the doctor must examine the patient and rule out other conditions with similar symptoms.
Since it may take several months or even years for all the common symptoms to appear, the diagnosis may not be made for a long time. A patient may even visit several different kinds of doctors before the diagnosis is made.
Key Symptoms
These symptoms are key to diagnosis:
- recurring genital sores
- eye inflammation with loss of vision
- characteristic skin lesions
- positive pathergy (skin prick test)
In this test, the skin is pricked with a small needle; 1 to 2 days after the test, people with Behcet's disease may develop a red bump where the skin was pricked. However, only 50% of patients in Middle Eastern countries and Japan have this reaction. This reaction is even less common in United States patients.
Other Factors
Besides finding these signs, the doctor must rule out other conditions with similar symptoms, such as:
Doctors also may recommend that patients see an eye specialist to identify possible complications related to eye inflammation. To help distinguish Behcet's from other disorders, doctors may perform biopsies for lesions of the:
- mouth
- genitals
- skin
