[Extrapulmonary sarcoidosis: gastrointestinal involvement -case report and review of literature]

Sarcoidosis is a rare systemic disease characterized by noncaseating granulomas in affected organs. With > 90 % of all cases lung involvement is the most frequent site of manifestation of sarcoidosis, nevertheless multiple other organs can be affected. Extrapulmonary manifestations are lymph nodes, skin, nervous system, heart, eyes, bone marrow, spleen or gastrointestinal tract including liver and pancreas. Involvement of the gastrointestinal tract is rare, it can affect the whole intestine and is most frequently found in the stomach. Despite its infrequent manifestation, gastrointestinal sarcoidosis can have a significant clinical impact depending on the organ involved, so that early diagnosis is warranted. Medical treatment mainly consists of immunosuppressive therapy, most frequently with corticosteroids being the first treatment of choice. Dosage and duration of therapy is not well established yet. In the literature very limited data are available on this topic with randomized trials missing completely. The aim of this paper is to give a summary of the available data to this date.