Comparison of Clinical and Histopathologic Findings of Pathergy Test with Disposable/Sharp and Nondisposable/Blunt Needles in Behcet´s Disease

Authors: AYŞE SERAP KARADAĞ, GÜLFER AKBAY, MEHTAP AYDIN, HESNA MÜZEYYEN ASTARCI, MERAL EKŞİOĞLU

Abstract: Aim: The aim of this study was to determine whether using blunt instead of sharp needles presented any advantage and whether the histopathological interpretation prevailed over the clinical interpretation. Materials and Methods: This study was performed on 60 Behçet´s disease (BD) patients and 20 control subjects. The pathergy test was applied to all subjects intradermally with sharp and blunt needles and the histopathology of each test result was studied. Results: In the active period of BD (40 patients), positive test results were obtained in 34 (85.0%) patients using blunt needles and in 13 (32.5%) using sharp needles (P = 0.0001). In the active group, there was a significant difference in results when compared with the histopathologic findings (P < 0.05). In the remission period group (20 patients), positive results were obtained in 9 (45.0%) patients with blunt needles and in 2 (10.0%) with sharp needles (P = 0.013). In the remission group, there were no significant differences in results when compared with the histopathologic findings. In the control group patients, all blunt and sharp needle pathergy tests were negative. Conclusions: This study has demonstrated that a higher positivity rate is obtained in pathergy tests using blunt needles when compared with sharp needles. We suggest that clinical interpretation of the pathergy test with blunt needles is adequate to determine activity of BD; histopathologic interpretation does not provide any extra advantages.

Keywords: Behçet´s disease, blunt needles, histopathological interpretation, pathergy test, sharp needles

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