[Usefulness of various echographic examinations in the study of extrapulmonary lesions of sarcoidosis]

Echocardiographic study performed by Ohmori and others revealed a statistically significant difference between sarcoidosis patients with and without left ventricular perfusion defects in regards to LVDd, LVDs, LVEF, %FS, WT and EPSS. Echocardiography is a useful noninvasive tool in addition to Thallium-201 myocardial scintigraphy, in detection of myocardial involvement of sarcoidosis. Marked swelling of abdominal lymph node and splenomegaly was found by abdominal echography, in the sarcoid patients at onset as well as in the chronic stage. Both abdominal echography and CT revealed a hepatic sarcoid mass lesion in patients with and without hepatic dysfunction. Improvement of these abdominal echographic abnormalities correlated well with clinical improvement of sarcoid lesion. In addition, muscular echographic abnormalities were found in muscular sarcoid lesion. It can be said that echography is useful in the detection and follow up of extrapulmonary lesions of sarcoidosis.