Successful Treatment of Refractory Mucocutaneous Behçet's Disease With Gastrointestinal Involvement Using Anti-tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha (Anti-TNF-α) Therapy

Abstract

Behçet's disease is a systemic inflammatory disorder that manifests with recurrent oral and genital ulcers, skin lesions, and ocular disease. Current available classification criteria greatly depend on mucocutaneous manifestations. Gastrointestinal involvement is particularly rare and often presents significant diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. We report the case of a 33-year-old male with uncontrolled Behçet's disease, presenting with cutaneous vasculopathic ulcers and gastrointestinal manifestations despite being on conventional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (CDMARDs), who achieved full remission following initiation of adalimumab biosimilar. This case highlights the effectiveness of adalimumab biosimilar in managing refractory mucocutaneous and gastrointestinal manifestations of Behçet's disease. Most of the evidence available is from observational data. There is a growing body of evidence supporting the use of anti-tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) therapy in severe gastrointestinal Behcet's disease. Anti-TNF-α may be considered in some cases.

Keywords: anti-tnf-α treatment; behcet’s disease (bd); disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (dmard); gastrointestinal behcet’s disease (gibd); mucocutaneous manifestations.