Behçet's disease complicated with meningeal thickening: a case report and literature review

Abstract

Objective To explore the characteristics of diagnosis and treatment of Behcet's disease (BD) with meningeal thickening and to improve doctors' awareness of such diseases. Methods We reported a missed diagnosis of a patient with BD complicated with diffuse meningeal thickening, and reviewed the related literature. Results A 25-year-old young man, manifested mainly as recurrent headache, fever, recurrent oral ulcer, erythema skin nodules and folliculitis, and his cranial radiology revealed diffuse meningeal thickening and intracranial venous sinus thrombosis. We diagnosed him as neuropathy associated with BD. After the treatment with steroids, cyclophosphamide, infliximab and anti-coagulants, his symptoms improved rapidly. Conclusion In clinical, BD complicated with meningeal thickening is rare, which is easily misdiagnosed or miss-diagnosed. For the patients with unexplained meningeal thickening, the symptoms of BD, such as recurrent oral or genital ulcers, ophthalmitis and skin lesions, should be acquired in detail. In addition to steroids and immunosuppressive agents, anti tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha can also be used in the treat-ment of BD with meningeal thickening. Key words: Behcet's disease; Meningeal thickening; Intracranial venous sinus thrombosis; Infliximab