A review of Behcet's disease from the perspectives of both Western and Chinese medicine.

Behcet's disease is a condition with a complicated and unclear etiology that comprises multi-systemic, chronic, inflammatory vasculitis. Behcet's disease can affect every tissue and organ in the body, and is characterized by recurrent oral and genital ulcers, ocular inflammation, skin lesions, and other manifestations. The incidence of Behcet's disease has a distinct regional specificity, and is most prevalent along the Silk Road, a route that stretched between the Mediterranean, Middle East and Far East. This article reviews the recent literature to evaluate the prevalence, clinical manifestations, pathogenesis and mechanism, and current treatments of Behcet's disease. Furthermore, the etiology of Behcet's disease will be evaluated from the aspect of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) syndrome differentiation. As Behcet's disease is complex and intractable, its treatment warrants further research. Traditionally, Behcet's disease is treated with Western Medicine (WM) via medications that act locally and systemically; this WM treatment protocol usually has a good effect, but relapse can occur after reducing the dosage. Thus, it may be ideal to treat Behcet's disease via a combination of WM and TCM. Recent studies have indicated that such a combination of Chinese and Western treatments has a better effect than either treatment alone. The aim of the present review is to describe the clinical features of Behcet's disease, and to outline its possible pathogenesis in terms of both TCM and WM. Based on these findings, the present review proposes a Behcet's disease treatment protocol composed of a combination of Chinese and WM that can effectively improve the occurrence of relapse caused by the reduction of the dosage of Western medication.