Intestinal permeability in Behcet's syndrome

Objective-To measure the intestinal permeability in patients with Behcet's syndrome (BS) and to compare the results with those obtained from healthy a nd diseased controls. Method-The study group comprised 34 patients with BS without known gastroin testinal disease. Ten patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS), 6 with inf lammatory bowel diseases (IBD), 17 with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and 15 healthy subjects (HC) constituted the controls. All patients receiv ed 100 mu Ci (3.7 MBq) of chromium-51 EDTA (Cr-51-EDTA) as a radioactive tr acer after a 72 hour abstinence from all drugs. The percentage of the isoto pe excreted in a 24 hour urinary specimen was the measure of permeability. Results-The percentage (SD) rate of excretion of Cr-51-EDTA was 4.6 (2.6) i n BS, 6 (2.3) in AS, 5.2 (1.9) in IBD, 5.56 (1.78) in SLE, and 2.3 (1) in h ealthy controls. (Analysis of variance: f=6.4, p=0.0002. BS v HC, AS v HC, SLE v HC significant.) Conclusion-The intestinal permeability in BS was significantly more than th at seen among the healthy controls. Similar results in all the diseased con trols cast doubt on its specificity.