Belkıs Nihan Coşkun

Comparing female-based contraceptive methods in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis and a healthy population

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a systemic autoimmune disease that is 10 times more prevalent in women, particularly those of reproductive age. The varying effects of pregnancy on SLE and the differences between available SLE treatments make pregnancy timing and contraceptive methods significant. We aimed to determine the contraceptive methods used by SLE patients in the north‐west part of Turkey, and compared them with those used by rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients and healthy controls.

Hairy cell leukemia presenting initially with symptoms of Behçet's disease

Vasculitis is relatively uncommon in lymphoproliferative disease and may predate the diagnosis of lymphoproliferative disease. Many vasculitides have been associated with hairy cell leukemia (HCL), including polyarteritis nodosa (PAN) and leukocytoclastic vasculitis. We herein report a case whose initial presentation was like Behçets disease (BD) (arthritis, oral and genital ulcerations, papulopustular skin lesions) in addition to pancytopenia, but turned out to have HCL. Because of the overlap between their symptoms, like oral ulcerations, skin lesions, arthritis and constitutional findings, HCL and BD may mimic each other. We should keep in mind other reasons for vasculitis such as lymphoproliferative disease, especially whose who have hematological abnormalities such as pancytopenia.

Adalimumab and infliximab of use inflammatory markers, cytokines and matrix metalloproteinase-3 levels effect in patient with rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis -

Objective: We aimed to assess adalimumab(ADA) and infliximab(IFX) efficacy on the patients of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) by using erithrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP), interferon gamma (IF-?), interleukin-1 beta (IL-1s), interleukin 6 (IL- 6), matrix metalloproteinase 3 (MMP-3). Material and Method: Sixteen RA, 15 AS patients were enrolled to this study. ADA was used on the half of RA patients , IFX was used on the other half randomly. ADA was used on 7 AS patients and IFX was used on 8 AS patients randomly too. Blood samples were taken at the weeks of 0, 1, 4 and 12. ESR and CRP were calculated at the same time with controls. Blood samples were hidden at the -20°C to evaluate after. Results: There wasn’t any significant difference between the groups of RA and AS patients in terms of ESH and CRP levels (p>0.05). IF-? was found lower on both patient groups and IL-6 and IL-1s were not included statistical analysis due to the wide range of values. MMP-3 levels was found correlated with ESR and CRP levels in both treatment and patient groups. MMP -3 was more supressed at ADA treated group on AS patients according to the IFX group on AS patients significantly (p