Clinical and histopathologic findings of pathergy test sites in patients with Behcet's disease / 대한피부과학회지

ABSTRACT

Through the clinicopathologic study of pathergy test sites of 16 patients with Behrets disease in the active or inactive stage, the following results were obtained; 1. In the active stage, six of 16 patients (37.5%) showed positive reactions in clinical pathergy tests, which are much higher than that in the inactive stage when only one patient showed a positive reaction. The severity of the ciniral pathergy reaction was directly related to the activity of the disease. 2. The characteristic histopathologic finding in the active stag was a dermal inflammatory cellular infiltration composed mainly of polymorphonuclear lukocytes and of lymphomononuclear cells accompanied by leukoctocylasia. Two of 16 patients showed true leukocytoclastic vasculitis. 3. Although the type of disease and the reactivity of the clinical pathergy test were related in terms of the severity of the histopathologic findings, there were some notible histopathologic changes even in the cases with negative clinical pathergy reactions. We concluded that the histopathologic findings of the pathergy test sites were more reliable for the diagnosis of Behcet's disease than the clinical findinigs.