Sarcoidosis is a systemic granulomatous disease of unknown etiology that involves many organs, occasionally mimicking malignancy. We herein report a 50-yr-old woman of muscular sarcoidosis of chronic myopathic type, manifested by hypercalcemia and muscle wasting. Besides insignificant hilar lymphadenopathy, her sarcoidosis was confined to generalized atrophic muscles and therefore, F-18 FDG PET/CT alone among conventional imaging studies provided diagnostic clues for the non-parathyroid-related hypercalcemia. On follow-up PET/CT during low-dose steroid treatment, FDG uptake in the muscles disappeared whereas that in the hilar lymph nodes remained. PET/CT may be useful in the evaluation of unexpected disease extent and monitoring treatment response in suspected or known sarcoidosis patients.

Purpose: To determine whether the marrow conversion index (MCI) in MRI is related to the total number of mononuclear and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) in proximal femoral metaphysis of patients with hip osteoarthritis.Materials and Methods: Thirty-two hips of 32 consecutive patients who underwent total hip arthroplasty (THA) for hip osteoarthritis were included in this study. MRI of the hip was performed preoperatively and MCI was subsequently calculated. Three-milliliter bone marrow samples were obtained from the proximal femur during THA and the number of total mononuclear cells was determined using a hemocytometer. Colony forming unit-fibroblasts (CFU-Fs) assays of MSCs were performed by transferring a total of 2 Â 10 4 mononuclear cells to each of five 60-mm plates. One week later, the numbers of colonies were counted.Results: The total number of mononuclear cells decreased with increasing MCI. Likewise, the prevalence and total number of CFU-Fs increased with increasing number of total mononuclear cells, and decreased with increasing MCI. Conclusion:Our results suggest that measurement of MCI in MRI can be an objective and noninvasive method to predict marrow cellularity and the number of MSCs in patients with hip osteoarthritis.