Temporal changes in echocardiographic findings in cardiac and non-cardiac sarcoidosis patients

Echocardiography is used for the detection of cardiac sarcoid involvement in patients with non-cardiac sarcoidosis. Little information is available regarding temporal changes in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and left ventricular end-diastolic dimension (LVDd) in non-cardiac sarcoidosis patients.

Fifty-four sarcoidosis patients who received periodic follow-up with echocardiography at our institute were enrolled in this study. At the time of initial ultrasonography, 13 patients were diagnosed with cardiac sarcoid involvement. All of the remaining 41 patients with extra-cardiac sarcoidosis only had a LVEF of >50%. During the median follow-up period of 39 months, two (4.9%) of the non-cardiac sarcoidosis patients were diagnosed with cardiac sarcoid involvement; one patient showed a progressive decline in the LVEF over a short period of time. It was also found that two of 41 non-cardiac sarcoidosis patients showed declines in the LVEF of >10% per year; however, they were not diagnosed with cardiac sarcoidosis during the follow-up period.

Rapid deterioration of left ventricular function may increase the suspicion of sarcoid involvement of the heart in non-cardiac sarcoidosis patients; however, we must be aware that a certain subfraction of patients may not demonstrate significant abnormalities in LVEF or LVDd on periodic echocardiographic follow-up.