Disease assessment in Behçet's disease

Abstract

Behçet's disease (BD) starts early and may last a long time so that the whole of the working life and the family can be compromised by the disease process. A few disease assessment measures have been studied in BD. The ones that have been developed specifically for BD are small in number, and most lack coverage for some manifestations of the disease, which may be seen with different frequencies in different parts of the world, such as gastrointestinal and neurological involvement. Eye involvement, the main cause of morbidity, still lacks good and easy to use assessment tools. Part of the reason for lack of disease assessment measures in Behçet's disease may be that methodology of disease assessment tool development has to be valid, and this is not widely appreciated. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.