The North Pacific Surgical AssociationSarcoidosis as a benign cause of lymphadenopathy in cancer patients
Section snippets
Methods
We conducted a retrospective chart review of all patients with a diagnosis of sarcoidosis or mediastinal adenopathy who underwent mediastinoscopy at Swedish Medical Center and Cancer Institute from 2004 to 2008. Patients were identified by a database query using the International Classification of Diseases codes of sarcoidosis or mediastinal adenopathy and the Current Procedural Terminology code for mediastinoscopy. The charts of all identified patients were reviewed, and data were obtained and
Results
A total of 565 mediastinoscopies were performed by 3 surgeons during the study period. There were 41 cases of sarcoidosis. Twenty-one cases of sarcoidosis developed after a diagnosis of cancer.
The patients with sarcoidosis and cancer were predominantly female. Less than one third were smokers. The average time that elapsed between cancer diagnosis and sarcoidosis diagnosis was 3 years (range from concurrent diagnosis to 12 years). Patients with sarcoidosis found on mediastinoscopy but no
Comments
An association between sarcoidosis and cancer has been the subject of a long-standing debate. Several epidemiologic studies have asserted an increased incidence of sarcoidosis in cancer patients, but others have not confirmed this association.8, 19, 20, 21, 22 In our series of 565 consecutive mediastinoscopies, 53% of the biopsy-proven cases of sarcoidosis occurred in patients with prior malignancy. This is a highly selected population of patients referred to a tertiary care center for an
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