Radiologic Manifestations of Musculoskeletal Sarcoidosis

The purpose of this review article is to present the spectrum of abnormalities and multi-modality imaging evaluations in patients with musculoskeletal sarcoidosis.

The articular manifestations of sarcoidosis are difficult to distinguish from those of the other inflammatory and degenerative arthropathies, and the muscular lesions in sarcoidosis are generally clinically silent and therefore often missed. Magnetic resonance imaging has shown these manifestations to be very common in active sarcoidosis, and should thus be included in the screening if musculoskeletal sarcoidosis is suspected. The clinician should consider magnetic resonance imaging for the evaluation of patients with sarcoidosis who have unexplained osteoarticular complaints if standard radiographs are negative. Furthermore, radiologists should include sarcoidosis in the differential diagnosis of musculoskeletal disease detected at magnetic resonance imaging in the appropriate clinical setting.