Abstract
Ocular disease is relatively common in sarcoidosis and can be the initial clinical manifestation in some instances. In this study, we retrospectively evaluated the clinical and demographic features of 9 (1.74%) patients with lacrimal gland (LG) involvement out of 516 sarcoidosis patients who were followed up at our centre over the preceding 36-years. In addition, the characteristics of patients with LG involvement were compared to those of other cases with eye involvement and to other sarcoidosis patients. In 5 subjects with LG involvement, the chest X-ray was normal. The number of stage 0 subjects among other sarcoidosis patients was significantly lower than among patients with LG involvement (p<0.001). In 2 of these cases, the diagnosis of sarcoidosis was reached by LG biopsy. The mean age of patients with LG involvement was significantly lower than that of other sarcoidosis patients (p<0.001). Also, sarcoidosis-related organ involvement--other than of the LG--was more frequent than in other sarcoidosis patients (p<0.001). It should be borne in mind that LG involvement might be the initial manifestation of sarcoidosis and the chest X-ray in these patients might be completely normal.
Highlights
Sarcoidosis is a granulomatous disease of unknown aetiology with various clinical manifestations
It should be borne in mind that lacrimal gland (LG) involvement might be the initial manifestation of sarcoidosis and the chest X-ray in these patients might be completely normal
We evaluated the features of sarcoidosis patients with LG involvement being followed up at our centre
Summary
Sarcoidosis is a granulomatous disease of unknown aetiology with various clinical manifestations. Ocular findings during the course of systemic sarcoidosis are observed in 25–60% of the patients [1]. Ocular disease might be the initial finding of sarcoidosis and can sometimes cause serious visual impairment and even blindness [2]. Lacrimal gland (LG) and conjunctival involvement are frequent during the course of sarcoidosis, they are generally asymptomatic [2]. We evaluated the features of sarcoidosis patients with LG involvement being followed up at our centre. We compared the clinical features of subjects with LG involvement to those of patients with other forms of eye involvement and to all sarcoidosis patients
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