Can anticoagulation therapy in cerebral venous thrombosis associated with Beh çet's disease be stopped without relapse?

This report is of a series of seven patients with Behçet's disease (BD)-associated CVT, for which anticoagulation was stopped, and discusses the possibility of stopping anticoagulation during follow-up while receiving optimal treatment for BD. The diagnosis of BD was established during follow-up, which lasted a median of 120 [range: 60-1490] days after CVT diagnosis. The median duration of anticoagulation therapy was 29.5 months. On stopping anticoagulation, concomitant treatment then included colchicine, steroids and azathioprine, all introduced after BD was diagnosed. With a median follow-up of 25 months after anticoagulation interruption, only one relapse of CVT was observed. No relapse of CVT or other venous thrombosis was observed in the six patients treated by steroids associated with an immunosuppressant or colchicine. Our results emphasize that corticosteroids are essential for the treatment of BD-associated CVT, and that anticoagulant therapy may be safely stopped during follow-up in the presence of optimal BD treatment (steroids alone or with immunosuppressive drugs). PMID: 29523353 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Revue Neurologique - Category: Neurology Tags: Rev Neurol (Paris) Source Type: research