News

People with pulmonary sarcoidosis who undergo a lung transplant face greater short-term risks after surgery but have better long-term survival compared with individuals undergoing the procedure due to other lung conditions. Those are the key findings of a large U.S. study that investigated outcomes among people for whom the…

Nearly 4 in 10 people with pulmonary sarcoidosis had a relapse after reducing or stopping treatment, according to a review of more than 50 published studies. Most studies with timing data reported relapses occurring within 1.5 years of reducing or discontinuing treatment. Black patients and those with more advanced…

The Ann Theodore Foundation (ATF) and the Milken Institute have awarded $600,000 to three early-career researchers studying sarcoidosis in the U.S., with the goal of improving understanding of the disease, as well as its treatment and care. The new grant program, called Ann Theodore Foundation Learning Opportunities…

The antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine may help treat uveitis, a type of eye inflammation, in some people with ocular sarcoidosis, a study reports. Specifically, over half of the 42 people with sarcoidosis-related uveitis (SAU) responded to hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand names Plaquenil and Sovuna, with generics available. This allowed…

In cutaneous sarcoidosis, disease-driving immune cells ramp up their energy production, and blocking this energy production may be a useful strategy for treating the disease, a new study shows. The study specifically points to metformin, a metabolism-modulating drug that’s widely used to treat diabetes, as a potential treatment for…

Levels of specific immune complement proteins in blood and cerebrospinal fluid, including C3, factor B, and C5, showed strong potential for distinguishing people with neurosarcoidosis from those without the disease, according to a small study in the U.K. Combinations of several complement proteins yielded more discriminative potential, while combining…

A common genetic variant in the TNFR1 gene, which encodes a protein involved in regulating inflammation, may help identify people with sarcoidosis who are at higher risk of worsening lung function, a new study suggests. Researchers found that patients carrying two copies of the more common form of the…

Atyr Pharma plans to launch a new global clinical trial to test its investigational therapy, efzofitimod, in people with pulmonary sarcoidosis and a restrictive profile, in which the lungs cannot fully expand. The decision follows a type C meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to discuss…

Corticosteroid treatment leads to rapid improvements in kidney function in people with renal sarcoidosis, but later relapses are frequent, requiring additional immunosuppressive therapies, according to a Dutch study. “Our findings support a treatment protocol starting with prednisone [a corticosteroid] … followed by gradual tapering, and the addition of [corticosteroid-sparing]…

A standard heart ultrasound scan, called transthoracic echocardiography (TTE), may help screen for cardiac sarcoidosis when used alongside symptoms and heart rhythm tests, a study found. Adding heart strain imaging or three-dimensional echocardiography did not appear to significantly improve its overall diagnostic value. Although TTE had low sensitivity,…