Behçet disease: advantageous against development of neoplasia?

Although a good deal is known about the late occurrence of malignancy in the connective tissue disorders and other vasculitides, including the autoimmune diseases, for example, rheumatoid arthritis, progressive systemic sclerosis, Sjogren syndrome, systemic lupus erythematosus, and so on,' there have been few reports on concurrent neoplasms in Behpet disease and all of these were devoid of any documented pathophysiology except for the possibility of a drug induced relationship.2" In our referral teaching hospital, over 400 Behfet disease patients have been followed in the last 15 years on single agent and/or combined treatment protocols consisting of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroids, colchicine, and occasionally azathioprine (required in less than 1%). The median follow up duration for our patients is 9.8 years (range 1.2 to 15+ years) and no patients have been lost to follow up. In spite of the frequent controls and various treatment methods used in our several randomised trials for the management of Behget disease and its related vasculitic complications, we noticed the absence of de novo