Differences between patients with sarcoidosis with and without joint involvement treated for fifteen years in a third level hospital.

Introduction: Sarcoidosis is a complex disease of unknown etiology, with a variable course and highly different forms of presentation. Our objective was to characterize all our patients with sarcoidosis with emphasis on their clinical presentation and to establish differences between patients with sarcoidosis with and without joint involvement.

Methods: We reviewed the medical records of all patients with a diagnosis of sarcoidosis who were treated at the outpatient or inpatient services of the Pablo Tobón Uribe Hospital in Medellín, Colombia, from January 2002 to April 2017.

Results: We identified 22 patients with sarcoidosis. There were joint symptoms in 13 of them. All but one of the patients with sarcoidosis affecting the joints had concomitant skin involvement (92%), which was much less frequent in patients without joint involvement (22%) (odds ratio=4.2; P<.001).

Conclusions: Patients with sarcoidosis who have joint involvement have a much higher frequency of concomitant skin involvement. The absence of cutaneous findings in a patient with joint symptoms decreases the likelihood of sarcoidosis.