Cardiac sarcoidosis: Diagnosis confirmation by bronchoalveolar lavage and lung biopsy

The diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) is difficult to ascertain due to the insensitivity of endomyocardial biopsy. Current diagnostic criteria require a positive endomyocardial biopsy or extra-cardiac biopsy with clinical features suggestive of CS. Common tests for diagnosis of pulmonary sarcoidosis include bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), lung and mediastinal lymph node (MLN) biopsies. Our objective was to determine the diagnostic utility of these tests in patients with suspected CS and without prior history of pulmonary involvement.

Source: Respiratory Medicine - September 16, 2018 Category: Respiratory Medicine Authors: Bradley J. Petek, David G. Rosenthal, Kristen K. Patton, Sanaz Behnia, Jonathan M. Keller, Bridget F. Collins, Richard K. Cheng, Lawrence A. Ho, Paco E. Bravo, Carmen Mikacenic, Ganesh Raghu Source Type: research