Conjunctival Cytological Alterations in Ocular Behcet Disease.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the ocular surface alterations and tear film functions in patients with ocular Behcet disease (BD). METHODS: This study included 48 eyes of 48 patients with inactive BD and a control group of 33 age- and sex-matched subjects. Schirmer I and tear break-up time (TBUT) tests were used to evaluate the tear film of the subjects. Impression cytology was used to evaluate morphological changes of the conjunctival surface epithelial cells. RESULTS: The mean Schirmer I test result was 11.6 +/- 5.9 mm/5 minutes and 16.1 +/- 4.6 mm/5 minutes in the Behcet and control groups, respectively. The mean TBUT test result was 9.8 +/- 5.6 seconds and 13.2 +/- 5.7 seconds in the study and control groups, respectively. The Schirmer and TBUT test results were significantly lower in the study group than in the controls (P = 0.001 and P = 0.011, respectively). The mean impression cytology score was 1.3 +/- 0.9 in the study group and significantly higher than the control group value of 0.4 +/- 0.6 (P = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Tear film functions and conjunctival surface epithelial morphology were significantly altered in patients with ocular BD.