Increased Arterial Stiffness in Behcet's Disease Patients

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is an ideal indicator of arterial stiffness. This study investigated arterial stiffness of different vascular regions in patients suffering with Behcet's disease (BD), and we assessed whether arterial stiffness was affected by the clinical parameters of BD. Subjects and METHODS: This study included 53 BD patients (mean age 38+/-8 years) and 65 healthy controls (mean age 38+/-8 years) who were without any known cardiovascular diseases. After recording the clinical parameters of the BD patients, pulse wave velocity was measured with an automated device in the heart-femoral, heart-carotid, heart-brachial and femoral-ankle segments. RESULTS: Patients with BD had significantly higher PWV values than did the controls in all the regional arterial segments. The PWV values were not correlated with the duration of the disease, corticosteroid use or the presence of active disease at the time of examination. The clinical variables related to severe BD manifestations, which included severe disease, male gender, vascular lesions or immunosuppressant use, were partly associated with increased PWV on the univariate analysis, but any statistical significance for these clinical variables was lost in all the regional arterial segments on multivariate analysis. In addition, multivariate regression analysis revealed that age and the mean arterial pressure were independently associated with increased PWV in most regional arterial segments for BD patients. CONCLUSION: The patients with BD had significantly increased arterial stiffness in all the regional arterial segments when compared with the healthy controls. Longitudinal studies that employ a large population are required to determine the pathophysiologic and prognostic implications of increased arterial stiffness in BD.