Sarcoidosis is a highly variable, systemic granulomatous disease of hitherto unknown aetiology. The GenPhenReSa (Genotype-Phenotype Relationship in Sarcoidosis) project represents a European multicentre study to investigate the influence of genotype on disease phenotypes in sarcoidosis.The baseline phenotype module of GenPhenReSa comprised 2163 Caucasian patients with sarcoidosis who were phenotyped at 31 study centres according to a standardised protocol.From this module, we found that patients with acute onset were mainly female, young and of Scadding type I or II. Female patients showed a significantly higher frequency of eye and skin involvement, and complained more of fatigue. Based on multidimensional correspondence analysis and subsequent cluster analysis, patients could be clearly stratified into five distinct, yet undescribed, subgroups according to predominant organ involvement: 1) abdominal organ involvement, 2) ocular-cardiac-cutaneous-central nervous system disease involvement, 3) musculoskeletal-cutaneous involvement, 4) pulmonary and intrathoracic lymph node involvement, and 5) extrapulmonary involvement.These five new clinical phenotypes will be useful to recruit homogenous cohorts in future biomedical studies.

Sarcoidosis (SA) is a granulomatous, multisystem disease of unknown etiology. Most often the disease affects lungs and mediastinal lymph nodes, but it may occur in other organs. Neurosarcoidosis (NS) more commonly occurs with other sarcoidosis forms, in 1 % of cases it involves only nervous system. Symptomatic NS occurs but on autopsy study up to 25 % of cases are confirmed. NS can affect central nervous system: the brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves, and muscles. The diagnosis of neurosarcoidosis facilitates diagnostic criteria: histopathological, imaging and cerebrospinal fluid examination, and clinical symptoms. At present, there are no set standards for treatment of patients suffering from NS. Early therapy of symptomatic patients is recommended. Corticosteroids still are the first line of treatment for NS patients. In cases of steroids resistance, lack of their effectiveness or existence of contraindication to their use, immunosuppressant treatment is recommended. The latest NS algorithm with immunosuppressive treatment is discussed.

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After Mtb-hsp stimulation, increased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, TNF-alpha and IL-6 were found in sera from SA and TB patients in comparison with healthy controls; SA patients demonstrated the lowest levels of IL-4 and the highest levels of IL-10.

We demonstrated that not whole Mycobacterium tuberculosis but its particular antigens, hsp70 Mtb , hsp65 Mtb , and hsp16 Mtb , are present in lymph node tissues of patients with sarcoidosis (SA). hsp16 Mtb occurs in the early stage of SA, whereas hsp70 Mtb occurs in stage II of SA. hsp65 Mtb is highly expressed in the capillary vessels in lymph node tissues in patients with SA.