[Isolated spinal cord involvement. Recurrence of sarcoidosis]

Three months after having stopped a corticosteroid therapy prescribed for disseminated sarcoidosis, a 23 year-old man presented signs of thoracic spinal cord involvement, with a lymphocytic reaction in the CSF. The hypothesis of a recurrence of sarcoidosis was evoked, and, after a few days course of corticosteroid, the patient recovered; he had no functional sequelae, and did not present any recurrence 2 years after having stopped the treatment. The main characteristics of spinal cord sarcoidosis are summarized: occurrence during a usually previously known sarcoidosis, within weeks or months, located spinal cord involvement, sometimes with a syringomyelic syndrome, and lymphocytic CSF reaction. In this case, the lesion was probably an arachnoidal infiltration without tumorous process of the spinal cord. Corticosteroid must be prescribed at once, and for a long time, because the results of surgery are always poor.