Background: Behcet’s disease (BD) is a multisystemic inflammatory disease with unknown origin characterized by recurrent oral aphtous ulcers, genital, ocular and skin lesions. A single point mutation 1691G to A in the factor V gene increases the risk of venous thrombosis. This study designed to determine factor V Leiden mutation in Behcet’s disease, and to find out it's relationship with the clinical manifestations in Khuzestan province, Iran. Methods: One hundred patients with Behcet's Disease (44 males and 56 females) based on international diagnostic criteria and 70 healthy subjects were included in the study.Patients and controls were tested for the presence of factor V Leiden mutation using polymerase chain reaction method. Results: The prevalence of factor V Leiden mutation was significantly higher in BD (10 out of 100, 10%) compared with healthy control subjects (1 out of 70, 1.4%), (p=0.025). Vascular lesions in this study were deep vein thrombosis (DVT) (7%), subcutaneous thrombophlebitis (5%), stroke (1%) and retinal vasculitis (39%). It was found that there was no association between venous thrombosis and the factor V Leiden mutation in Khuzestanian patients. Also, no association between other vascular lesions and the factor V Leiden mutation was recognized. On the other hand there was a significant association between DVT and anterior uveitis (p=0.033). Conclusion: In this study we did not find any association between clinical manifestations in BD patients and factor V Leiden mutation in Khuzestan province, Iran but in BD patients with DVT, factor V Leiden mutation might be a risk factor for the development of anterior uveitis.

Keywords: Behcet’s disease, factor V leiden, mutation

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