Applied clinical immunology in sarcoidosis

Staging of sarcoidosis needs a synthesis of clinical features, histology, radiology, biochemical changes, and immunologic aberrations to distinguish this disease from nonspecific sarcoid-tissue reactions. The main aim of this report is to offer readers an overview on immunologic markers that have been evaluated in the last years with the ultimate goal of relating their determination to the management of the disease. The first part is devoted to immunologic markers that have been proposed to define the activity of the T-cell component of the sarcoid inflammatory process. In the second part of the paper, we will provide a descriptive definition of immunologic markers of activity of sarcoid macrophages relating them to the clinical course of sarcoidosis.