Therapeutic options and modern approaches for the treatment of Behcet’s disease

Abstract

Significant successes have been achieved in the treatment of Behçet’s disease (BD) over the past 2 years: the EULAR recommendations have been updated, the first drug specifically labeled for the BD treatment, apremilast, has been approved, new data have been published on the promising new therapeutic agents that may soon be added to the treatment of this condition. The purpose of this review is to summarize the most important and potentially clinically significant recent developments in the treatment of BD patients and discuss their impact on the management of BD patients. Long-term observation data confirm the significant role of tumor necrosis factor inhibitors in the BD treatment, namely eye damage; however, they were found to be safe and effective. New treatment options, such as ustekinumab, secukinumab, tocilizumab and others, show promising data, but more research is needed to clarify their role in the BD treatment. The lack of placebo-controlled randomized trials, for the most part, still poses a challenge for expanding management capabilities for the BD patients.

Keywords

• behcet’s disease
• treatment
• tumor necrosis factor inhibitors
• apremilast
• secukinumab
• ustekinumab