Lacrimal Sarcoidosis Treated With Corticosteroids

Sarcoidosis

“…Later, cases were reported in which painless enlargement of lacrimal glands was found by biopsy and association with other features of sarcoidosis to be apart of that disease (Rosenbaum, 1941;Sniderman, 1941;Schultz, 1945;Longcope and Freiman, 1952;Ainslie and James, 1956;Gruber et al, 1956;Crick et al, 1961;Cook et al, 1972), and granulomas have been found in lacrimal glands of normal size in patients with sarcoidosis (Crick et Greenburg et al, 1964). Lacrimal secretion, when tested, is frequently found to be deficient in patients with sarcoidosis, with or without evidence of other sorts of ocular involvement; it may lead to the syndrome of kerato-conjunctivitis sicca.…”

“…The dryness of the mouth, the inflamrna-tory and often painful nature of the salivary gland enlargement, usually with variations in size, occurrence predominantly in post-menopausal women, associated with features of connective-tissue disorders ranging from rheumatoid arthritis to atypical systemic lupus erythematosus with nonorgan-specific auto-antibodies, and the absence of c1inical or histological evidence of sarcoidosis should distinguish Sjögren's syndrome without undue difficulty . Usually, lacrimal gland sarcoidosis is accompanied by easily detected evidence of sarcoidosis e1sewhere; very occasionally, as in Case 1 of Cook et al (1972) it presents as the first evidence of sarcoidosis, diagnosis being made only by biopsy and search for sarcoidosis in other locations.…”