A Report of Two Cases of Sarcoidosis with Bronchial Carcinoma

Bronchial Carcinoma and Sarcoidosis

“…The two disease processes may be regarded as having been concurrent. Therefore, only in the two cases reported by Jefferson et al (1954) was there a resemblance to the two cases described in this paper, in which sarcoidosis was known to have been present for at least four years before the bronchial carcinoma developed, but with the difference that the latter was diagnosed during life.…”

“…This might explain the situation in the cases described by Goodbody and Taylor (1957) and Ellman and Hanson (1958), but would not explain the cases described in this paper and those of Jefferson et al (1954). The difficulty is that one can never be certain how long the sarcoidosis has been present before it is recognised clinically.…”

“…Jefferson et al (1954) described two cases in which generalised sarcoidosis, histologically proven by skin biopsy, had been present for eight years and five years before bronchial carcinoma supervened. In both cases, the onset of the primary bronchial carcinoma was not recognised during life, despite the development of a pleural effusion in one case, and evidence of multiple metastases in the other.…”

Anaplastic Carcinoma of the Lung and Sarcoidosis

“…Despite the final diagnosis it is considered justifiable, in view of the report of the first bronchial biopsy and the positive Kveim test, to suppose that this patient had sarcoidosis as well as an anaplastic carcinoma. Jefferson et al (1954) reported 2 patients with longstanding sarcoidosis who developed bronchial carcinoma, one a man of 52 with sarcoid skin lesions and bilateral hilar adenopathy who developed a squamous carcinoma from which he died, and the other a man of 45 who died as a result of cerebral metastases from an oat‐celled bronchial carcinoma and who had extensive pulmonary fibrosis due to sarcoidosis. Ellman and Hanson (1958) described a man of 55 who presented with haemoptysis and chest pain whose chest x‐ray showed bilateral enlargement of the hilar glands with infiltration in the upper lobes and a large opacity in the right lower lobe.…”

Open Lung Biopsy for Diffuse Pulmonary Lesions

“…However, even the latter diagnosis may be dubious, since a variety of conditions, such as tuberculosis, brucellosis, histoplasmosis, Hodgkin's diseaqe, carcinoma, and berylliosis, may give rise to sarcoid-like lesions in scalene nodes (Jefferson et al, 1954). On the other hand, considering the results of various major reported series of lung biopsy, a specific histological diagnosis appears to have been established in two-thirds of the cases; in the rest no specific lesion is discovered, but the histological end-results-for example, pulmonary fibrosiscan be appreciated in the majority, leaving about 10% where no opinion can be given.…”