Prognostic significance of lymphopenia in pulmonary sarcoidosis

Since BOTTGER (1966, 1969) AND HOFFBRAND (1968) had described the absolute lymphopenia in pulmonary sarcoidosis as a sign of immune deficiency there were several authors who tried to elucidate different problems of sarcoidosis (RACOVEANU et al. 1970, STOJAN et al. 1971, OSODA et al. 1972). One of these problems is the effort to correlate absolute lymphopenia to prognostic parameters. Three controlled therapeutic trials were performed and compared: 59 cases with clinically and histologically proven sarcoidosis with spontaneous regression and 180 cases with different regimens of prednisolone: --a steady increase of the absolute number of lymphocytes in cases without and with treatment is a prognostically good sign, --no increase or even decrease is a poor sign, -- a very low and unchanged number is worst. This seems to confirm--among other things--that course and prognosis of sarcoidosis really may not be affected by time-limited corticotherapy.