Clinical differences in sarcoidosis patients with and without lymphoma

What is it about?

A relevant clinical problem in the management of this disease is the co-existence of other clinical conditions, such as solid tumors or lymphomas, that may occur before or following the diagnosis of sarcoidosis as well as simultaneously. Comparing patients with sarcoidosis with and without lymphoma, a difference was found in terms of chest X-ray staging, specifically a milder disease extent/severity in patients with lymphoma. In fact, stage II was the most common stage in the sarcoidosis group, whilst stage I was more frequently observed in the sarcoidosis-lymphoma group. PFTs trended towards worsening in the sarcoidosis group, wherein functional abnormalities were more likely to be present, although this difference did not reach statistical significance (FVC: 3,3 vs 4,2 liters, p=0.052). We also detected a statistically significant difference in ACE serum levels between groups. Indeed, in the sarcoidosis-lymphoma syndrome group, serum ACE level was significantly higher compared to patients without lymphoma, both at the time of the diagnosis of sarcoidosis (94.9 UI/L vs 55.8 UI/L, p = 0.02) and at the last measurement available (83.3 UI/L vs 50.7 UI/L, p = 0.047).

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Why is it important?

Our study suggests the existence of clinical, radiological and serological differences in sarcoidosis with or without lymphoma syndrome. Larger prospective studies are required to confirm and expand on these observations.