Background

Behçet's Disease (BD) is an auto-inflammatory disease characterized by systemic vasculitis. Monocyte to HDL-cholesterol ratio (MHR), monocyte to lymphocyte ratio (MLR), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) are used as inflammatory markers in many disorders. Colchicine decreases inflammation by suppressing the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines. This study aims to examine the effects of colchicine treatment on MHR, MLR, and NLR levels of the patients with BD.

Material and methods

In this study, 80 patients, who were with mild/moderate/severe BD based on the Krause’s Clinical Severity Scoring for BD and received colchicine treatment for at least three months, were evaluated retrospectively. The results of MHR, MLR, NLR, and other hematological parameters were assessed in three groups as follows: pre-colchicine treatment (Group 1), at the end of the first month of the treatment (Group 2) and at the end of the third month of the treatment (Group 3).

Results

A total of 80 patients involving 39 (48.75%) females and 41 (51.25%) males, who were treated with colchicine due to the diagnosis of BD, were examined in this study. The mean age of the patients was 36.85 ± 10.659 (18−59) years. The findings showed that there was a statistically significant reduction in MHR, MLR, and NLR levels of post-colchicine treatment (p = 0.0004, p=0.0007, p=0.0003, respectively). MHR level was 0.015 ± 0.005 in Group 1, 0.013 ± 0.004 in Group 2, 0.011 ± 0.004 in Group 3, while MLR level was 0.346 ± 0.131 in Group 1, 0.277 ± 0.098 in Group 2, 0.229 ± 0.08 in Group 3, and NLR level was 2.528 ± 0.999 in Group 1, 2.001 ± 0.672 in Group 2, 1.704 ± 0.619 in Group 3. A significant association was found between the MHR value of pre-treatment and the clinical severity of BD (p=0.04).

Conclusion

The findings obtained in this study suggest that we can determine the anti-inflammatory impact of colchicine in BD using MHR, MLR, and NLR markers, and MHR can also be a potential index for assessing the disease activity of BD. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Abdullah Demırbaş, ZeynepGizem Kaya İslamoğlu

DermatolTher. 2020 Jul 15; e14013

PMID: 32 667 119

DOI: 10.1111/dth.14 013