Survey and validation of the criteria for Behcet's disease recently used in Korea: a suggestion for modification of the International Study Group criteria.

The criteria employed for Korean Behcet's disease (BD) from January 1990 to December 2000 have been investigated, and the diagnostic validity for those criteria was determined. For the generation of a modified set of preliminary criteria from the International Study Group (ISG) criteria, the diagnostic values for individual feature of BD were calculated. The criteria by the Behcet's Disease Research Committee of Japan appeared to be widely employed with the ISG criteria. However, because the ISG criteria revealed a relatively valid outcome in Korea, the application of this criteria will be needed for the universal unification until the criteria with better performance comes out. On the other hand, the modified set of preliminary criteria that consisted of the clinical items with better results seemed to improve some pitfalls of the ISG criteria. Although that criteria showed better performance than the preexisting criteria, it should be necessary to validate its effectiveness in other areas.