Treatment of ocular manifistations of behcet’s disease with interferon 2 α

الملخص EN

Behcet’s disease is a vasculitis of unknown etiology, it is most prevalent in Mediterranean area, the most serious problem is ocular involvement, and with the use of the immunosuppressive agents, ocular prognosis had significantly improved.

The interferon 2 α is a biological agent used for the treatment of viral hepatitis and renal cell carcinoma.

It is used now for the treatment of Behcet’s disease, the mode of action of INF in Behcet’s disease is still unknown, it has many immuno-modulatory effects, such as enhancement of HLA class (I) antigen expression on the lymphoid cells, T and NK cell cyto-toxicity, and it diverts the T cell response.

Forty patients had been studied through (2006-2008) in Merjan Teaching Hospital to compare the use of interferon 2 α versus other immunosuppressive agents to show the difference especially in refractory eye problems and vascular involvement.

Six to nine million units of interferon per week were given subcutaneously to (20) patients whom either newly diagnosed or already had Behcet’s disease and did not respond to other immunosuppressive agents, those patients are compared with other (20) patients whom already treated by other drugs like cyclosporine, azothioprine and other immunosuppressive agents.

The duration of the treatment with interferon was (3-6) months and ophthalmologist and rheumatologist did follow up for one year.

The mean age of the patients was (14-55) year, the group one included (14) males and (6) females while group two included (13) males and (7) females.

The group one showed dramatic response to interferon, especially among the newly diagnosed patients while those patients treated with other drugs got better response with the use of interferon alone.

Only three patients not responded to interferon, one was newly diagnosed and the other two were already diagnosed.

Thirteen patients showed complete remission or became stable during follow up period.

While in group two, (8) patients showed relapse after stopping therapy, (2) patients showed deterioration of the visual acuity and eye problems even with therapy and (10) patients showed complete remission in the follow up period.

From this study, we found that interferon 2 α is the newly emerged therapy of Behcet’s disease and its complications that are not responding to ordinary therapy.

Interferon 2 α is useful in the treatment of Behcet’s disease in Iraq and should be used to prevent serious problems of the disease like blindness and vascular obstruction.