The findings of the present study demonstrated that patients with an initial diagnosis of IPF occasionally acquire MPO-ANCA, which develops to MPA during the disease course of IPF. The presence of pulmonary eosinophilia and low attenuation areas on computed tomography scans might be predictive of MPO-ANCA positive conversion.

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Increased pulmonary vascular permeability and inflammation due to Ang-2 may play a role in the pathogenesis of AE-IIPs.

Subcutaneous sarcoidosis is the specific subset of cutaneous sarcoidosis frequently associated with systemic disease. However, the disease activity, severity, and prognosis have not yet been elucidated due to the limited number of reported cases. The purpose of this study was to identify the clinical, laboratory, and prognostic differences between subcutaneous sarcoidosis and other type of cutaneous sarcoidosis. All patients with sarcoidosis diagnosed histopathologically from 2000 to 2012 at our institution were enrolled. The clinical, laboratory, chest X-ray, and pulmonary function test results were retrospectively evaluated in the patients with cutaneous sarcoidosis. In the 130 patients with sarcoidosis, cutaneous sarcoidosis was diagnosed in 37 patients (28.4 %), and 9 (6.9 %) of these patients had subcutaneous sarcoidosis. The serum levels of soluble interleukin-2 receptor (sIL-2R) were significantly elevated in the group of patients with subcutaneous sarcoidosis in comparison to the patients with other types of cutaneous sarcoidosis, whereas there was no significant difference in the severity score between the two groups. Following a 2-year observation period, three patients were in remission, five patients demonstrated stable disease, and one patient had progressive disease. Subcutaneous sarcoidosis may be associated with the disease activity, although it was not found to be associated with the disease severity and it was not a predictive factor for the prognosis. Furthermore, the prevalence of subcutaneous sarcoidosis may be higher than that in previously reported series.

We herein report a rare case of sarcoidosis presenting as bilateral vocal cord paralysis due to bilateral vagal nerve involvement. A 72-year-old woman with uveitis of the left eye complained of hoarseness and aspiration due to bilateral vocal cord paralysis. An endobronchial needle aspiration biopsy specimen of the mediastinal lymph nodes showed non-caseating epithelioid cell granuloma. Total protein and cell concentrations in the cerebrospinal fluid were increased. We diagnosed her to have sarcoidosis with bilateral vagal nerve involvement. Corticosteroid therapy improved her symptoms of hoarseness and aspiration. Sarcoidosis should therefore be taken into consideration as a potential cause of bilateral vocal cord paralysis.