03 October 2025
Our first living guideline was published in September 2024 for managing people with Beçhets and the living methodology ensures that the recommendations will always be kept up to date, in line with the latest evidence, as it emerges.
Now, just 12 months later, the latest iteration of the clinical guideline has just been co-published by BSR and the British Association of Dermatologists in both Rheumatology and the British Journal of Dermatology.
In the update you’ll find a table to helpfully outline what is new and what has changed in this second, living iteration. An accessibility map also provides an interactive, user-friendly view of how the recommendations have changed.
New additions include recommendations for using patient-initiated follow-up (PIFU) services, tapering of corticosteroids, embolization for people with Behçets with pulmonary artery aneurysms who carry a high bleeding risk, as well as advice on common causes of sight-threatening disease.
Of the recommendations from the 2024 guideline iteration, 24 have been amended based on new evidence and two were retired. These include updates related to patient information, management of gastrointestinal Beçhets, deep-vein thrombosis, arterial involvement and pulmonary arterial aneurysm associated with Behçets. A number of recommendations in the Treatments section have also been revised in view of recent published literature and the Guideline Development Group consensus.
Another of the new recommendations reminds clinicians to consider registering all eligible patients with Beçhets (i.e. with a new confirmed diagnosis of Behçets) into the National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Audit (NEIAA) database.
The patient management pathway algorithm has also been updated to incorporate all changes made.
The guideline is available to view for free via the British Society for Rheumatology website.
A curriculum-based webinar, exclusive to BSR members, is taking place on 8 October 2025 to explore the updated recommendations, strategies on management and clinical cases as well as providing up-to-date clinical insights for healthcare professionals. Register here.