Clinical impact of inspiratory muscle impairment in sarcoidosis.

Background And Aim Of The Work: We evaluated the clinical consequences of inspiratory muscle impairment on exercise tolerance and quality of life in 34 sarcoid patients compared with 19 controls.

Methods: We measured pulmonary function tests, inspiratory muscle strength by maximal inspiratory pressure (PImax) and inspiratory muscle endurance (IME) by an incremental threshold loading test. IME was defined by the maximal sustainable pressure for 2 minutes (Plim2) and Plim2/PImax.