Serum leptin levels in patients with ocular and nonocular Behcet's disease

Abstract

Aims. To investigate serum leptin levels in Behcet's patients with or without ocular involvement compared with healthy subjects and the relationship between serum leptin and uveitis activity in patients with ocular involvement. Methods. Fifty-seven patients with Behcet's disease and 20 healthy control subjects were included in this study. While 27 patients had ocular involvement (18 had acute uveitis, 9 had inactive ocular involvement), 30 did not have ocular disease. C-reactive protein, alpha 1-antitrypsin, and serum leptin levels were measured in all samples. Results. There was a significant difference between the patients with Behchet's disease and control group for both logarithm of leptin (P = .000) and logarithm of CRP (P = .031). Logarithm of leptin in nonocular Behcet's patients was significantly higher compared to its level in ocular Behcet's disease and controls (P =.009). There was a significant difference between the patients with active ocular disease and control group (P = .03). Conclusions. Leptin might have a possible role in the pathogenesis of Behcet's disease. Copyright (c) 2007 F. Nilufer Yalciindag et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.