The ocular surface in the Behçet's disease patient

Abstract

Objective: Evaluation of the morphological changes in conjunctival surface epithelial cells with impression cytology in Behçet's disease patients.

Patients: A total of 89 eyes of 89 subjects were included. These consisted of 56 patients with inactive Behçet's disease (group 1) and a control group of 33 age- and sex-matched subjects (group 2).

Methods: Schirmer-I and break-up time (BUT) tests were used to evaluate the tear film of the subjects. Impression cytology was used to evaluate morphological changes of the conjunctival surface epithelial cells. The results of the 2 groups were compared.

Results: The mean Schirmer-I test result was 8.59 ± 4.83 in group 1 and 14.52 ± 6.38 in group 2. There was a statistically significant difference between the 2 groups for this test (p = 0.001). The mean BUT test value was 10.05 ± 3.26 in group 1 and 13.64 ± 4.28 in group 2. There was a statistically significant difference between the 2 groups for this test (p = 0.001). The mean impression cytology score was 1.65 ± 0.90 in group 1 and 1.39 ± 0.96 in group 2. There was no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups when the cytology grade score was compared (p = 0.227). We found no statistically significant difference for age, gender, disease duration, systemic drug use, Schirmer-I, BUT, and impression cytology degrees between the Behçet's disease patients with and without ocular involvement (p > 0.05).

Conclusions: We found that there was a statistically significant difference between Behçet's disease patients and normal subjects regarding the ocular film layer, but no difference regarding conjunctival surface epithelial morphology.