Treat to target in Behcet's disease: Should we follow the paradigm of other systemic rheumatic diseases?

George E. Fragoulis, George Bertsias, Bahram Bodaghi, Ahmet Gul, Jan van Laar, Gonca Mumcu, David Saadoun, Ilknur Tugal-Tutkun, Gulen Hatemi*, Petros P. Sfikakis*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

During the last decades the efficacy of biologic agents, mainly of anti-TNFs, in controlling the activity of serious manifestations of Behcet's Disease (BD) has been established. On the other hand, the clinical heterogeneity of BD has precluded the validation of a widely-accepted composite index for disease assessment and for target disease-state definitions, such as low disease activity and remission, and the testing of their implementation in clinical practice. Therefore, in contrast to other systemic rheumatic diseases, a treat-to-target strategy has not yet been developed in BD. There are several challenges towards this approach, including standardization of outcome measures for assessing the disease activity in each-affected organ and construction of a composite disease activity index. The challenges for the development of a treat-to-target strategy and possible solutions are discussed in this position paper, which stemmed from a round table discussion that took place in the 19th International Conference on BD.

Original languageEnglish
Article number109186
JournalClinical Immunology
Volume246
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2023

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