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Behcet’s disease with peripheral nervous system involvement successfully treated with golimumab: a case report and review of the literature

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Abstract

Nervous system involvement is a rare and serious complication of Behcet’s disease (BD), and the peripheral type is rarer. This article aimed to describe a case of BD with the peripheral nervous system (PNS) involvement and present a comprehensive literature review. One case of BD with PNS involvement was reported and related literature was retrospectively reviewed via PubMed/MEDLINE and Scopus database. The patient was resistant to traditional treatments, such as glucocorticoids and immunosuppressants, but had rapid quiescence after using golimumab. Our literature review suggests that the involved peripheral nerves in BD were diverse, the most common were the tibial nerves and peroneal nerves, vasculitis might be the main cause, and prednisone was still the cornerstone of treatment. TNF-α inhibitors have been increasingly used for refractory BD in recent years. This well-illustrated case demonstrates the potential benefit of golimumab to the patient with PNS involvement. Given the diversity and complexity of PNS involvement, we recommend golimumab as a new trial treatment in clinical practice.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the patient and her husband for their trust and cooperation. We hope this harmonious doctor-patient relationship will last forever.

Funding

This research received no specific Grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Rheumatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, 1 Eastern Jianshe Road, Zhengzhou, 450052, Henan, China

    Menghui Yao, Congcong Gao, Chunyi Zhang, Xueqi Di, Wenfang Liang, Wenbo Sun, Qianqian Wang & Zhaohui Zheng

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  1. Menghui Yao
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  2. Congcong Gao
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  3. Chunyi Zhang
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  4. Xueqi Di
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  8. Zhaohui Zheng
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Contributions

ZZ formulated a treatment plan for the patient, CZ and XD were responsible for following up the patient, WL, WS, and MY searched the relevant literature, QW was responsible for the figure and table in the paper, MY and CG wrote the paper with input from all authors. All authors discussed the outline and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhaohui Zheng.

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Conflict of interest

Menghui Yao, Congcong Gao, Chunyi Zhang, Xueqi Di, Wenfang Liang, Wenbo Sun, Qianqian Wang and Zhaohui Zheng declared that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University(2019-KY-187).

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Yao, M., Gao, C., Zhang, C. et al. Behcet’s disease with peripheral nervous system involvement successfully treated with golimumab: a case report and review of the literature. Rheumatol Int 41, 197–203 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-020-04650-0

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