[Pleural sarcoidosis: report of five cases (author's transl)]

From a series of 110 patients with sarcoidosis seen at our hospital from October 1971 to September 1979, five cases were found with histologically proven pleural sarcoidosis, an incidence of 4.6%. Pleural involvement was not described in the surgical or autopsy protocols. Infiltration by sarcoid granulomas was found in the visceral and/or parietal layers in five cases of seven in whom pleural tissue was available for examination. The layer affected depended directly on the available sample. Only one patient had pleural effusion, which was an exudate with a high lymphocyte count; the case corresponded to a stage II sarcoidosis. The number of histologically proven cases of pleural sarcoidosis reported in the medical literature is very small, only 52 cass, including our own. In conclusion, it appears that the frequency of pleural sarcoidosis is falsely low, and that the availability of pleural tissue in patients with sarcoidosis undergoing thoracotomy might rise the figures heretofore encountered.