is it possible to differentiate neuro-Behçets disease from other central nervous system diseases?
Two neuroradiologists reviewed MRI studies of 34 patients with neuro-Behcet’s disease (NBD), 22 with multiple sclerosis (MS) and 7 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) with central nervous system involvement, masked to the clinical diagnosis, age and sex of the patients. Of the patients with NBD 12 were in an acute attack; the others had chronic disease. MRI was assessed using a set of criteria, looking at atrophy, the site of discrete parenchymal lesions, regions of predominant involvement and the extent of the lesion(s). The observers also made a guess at the clinical diagnosis. The brain stem and/or basal ganglia were the most predominantly involved sites in all patients with acute NBD; 75% of these lesions were large and confluent, mainly extending from the brain stem to the diencephalon and basal ganglia. However, in chronic cases, the predominant involvement was in the brain stem and/or basal ganglia in only 36%, and in cerebral hemisphere white matter in another 36%; 27% of t
