What is sarcoidosis?
Sarcoidosis is a disease that can affect any organ in the body. The lung is the most common organ involved with sarcoidosis. The eyes, skin, and lymph glands are also commonly involved. Sarcoidosis can also affect the liver, spleen, brain, nerves, heart, bones, muscles, and joints. Sarcoidosis can also cause generalized body symptoms such as fever, weight loss, night sweats, and fatigue.
Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disease that affects multiple organs in the body, but mostly the lungs and lymph glands. In patients with sarcoidosis, abnormal masses or nodules (called granulomas) consisting of inflamed tissues form in certain organs of the body. These granulomas might alter the normal structure and possibly the function of the affected organ(s). Who is at risk for the disease?
Sarcoidosis (sar-koy-DO-sis) is a disease of unknown cause that leads to inflammation. It can affect various organs in the body. Normally, your immune system defends your body against foreign or harmful substances. For example, it sends special cells to protect organs that are in danger. These cells release chemicals that recruit other cells to isolate and destroy the harmful substance. Inflammation occurs during this process. Once the harmful substance is destroyed, the cells and the inflammation go away. In people who have sarcoidosis, the inflammation doesn’t go away. Instead, some of the immune system cells cluster to form lumps called granulomas (gran-yu-LO-mas) in various organs in your body.
Sarcoidosis (pronounced SAR-COY-DOE-SIS) is an inflammatory disease that can affect almost any organ in the body. It causes heightened immunity, which means that a persons immune system, which normally protects the body from infection and disease, overreacts, resulting in damage to the bodys own tissues. The classic feature of sarcoidosis is the formation of granulomas, microscopic clumps of inflammatory cells that group together (and look like granules, hence the name). When too many of these clumps form in an organ they can interfere with how that organ functions. In people in the United States, sarcoidosis most commonly targets the lungs and lymph nodes, but the disease can and usually does affect others organs, too, including (but not limited to) the skin, eyes, liver, salivary glands, sinuses, kidneys, heart, the muscles and bones, and the brain and nervous system. What Causes Sarcoidosis? No one knows exactly what causes sarcoidosis, but it is probably due to a combination of fac
