Elsevier

Clinics in Chest Medicine

Volume 29, Issue 3, September 2008, Pages 525-532
Clinics in Chest Medicine

Quality of Life and Health Status in Sarcoidosis: A Review of the Literature

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccm.2008.03.003Get rights and content

The quality of life and health status are impaired in patients suffering from sarcoidosis, especially in those who have clinical symptoms. Fatigue is an integral part of the clinical picture of sarcoidosis, but is an underestimated problem in clinical practice. Objective test results do not always correlate with the well-being of the patient. Present studies are generally cross-sectional. There is a need for prospective follow-up studies assessing the natural course of patients' disease in relation to symptoms and quality of life.

Section snippets

Methods

A search using the PubMed database was performed with the key words “sarcoidosis and health status,” “sarcoidosis and quality of life,” and “sarcoidosis and fatigue” for the time period until November 2007. This resulted in 22, 68, and 105 papers, respectively. Only 15 of the papers with the key words “fatigue” and “sarcoidosis” seemed to be relevant studies; the others mainly were case reports or reviews. Fifteen papers found with the key words “sarcoidosis” and “health status” and 14 of

Sarcoidosis quality of life and fatigue

The greatest impact on QOL in sarcoidosis, as seen in clinical practice, is caused by rather nonspecific symptoms hard to objectify, such as fatigue and sleeping disorders [4]. For instance, in one study there seemed to be a number of QOL areas in which sarcoidosis patients, particularly those with current symptoms, experienced problems. Patients either with or without current symptoms suffered from fatigue, sleeping problems, and impaired general QOL compared with a healthy control group.

Discussion

This article focuses on current knowledge of the QOL, HS, and fatigue of sarcoidosis patients. QOL in sarcoidosis is impaired with respect to mobility, working capacity, and activities of daily living, especially in sarcoidosis patients suffering from fatigue and other symptoms, such as breathlessness and arthralgia. HS of sarcoidosis patients is also lower compared with healthy controls, especially in the cognitive aspects, mobility, home management, leisure activities, sleep, social

Summary

The QOL and HS are impaired in patients suffering from sarcoidosis, especially in those with clinical symptoms. Fatigue is an integral part of the clinical picture of sarcoidosis. Although fatigue is a well-known symptom of sarcoidosis, it remains an underestimated problem in clinical practice. Objective test results, such as chest radiographs and laboratory parameters, do not always correlate with the well-being of the patient. Present studies are generally cross-sectional. There is a need for

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