Colchicine Therapy in Sarcoid Arthropathy

Abstract

To the Editor.— We read with great interest the article by Lindsley and Godfrey1 but wish to disagree with one of their conclusions. They suggested that oral corticosteroid therapy is the treatment of choice in sarcoid arthropathy because salicylate and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs have only limited success in such cases. We believe, however, that this is not the case, because low-dosage colchicine therapy has provided good results in the agement of both the acute and chronic forms of sarcoid arthropathy when there was no adequate response to nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents and bed rest. Colchicine was first used in the treatment of sarcoid arthropathy by Kaplan,2,3 who reported a dramatic improvement, usually within a few days, with the use of 0.5 mg of oral colchicine daily. Subsequently, maintenance oral therapy with colchicine, 1 to 2 mg/d, was introduced to treat the chronic form of the disease, with similar beneficial results.3-7