BIOCHEMICAL PARAMETERS IN BAL OF SARCOISOSIS

Sarcoidosis can be presented to the physician as an active or silent d isorder, which may resolve or lead to pulmonary fibrosis. Various seru m or bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL) markers have been suggested wh en trying to find one marker or a combination of markers which could b e representative of the disease.The aim of the study was to evaluate a number of biochemical markers in comparison to cellular parameters in BAL of 45 patients with active or inactive sarcoidosis, as well as in 44 patients with other disorders and of 10 healthy volunteers. Moreov er, in order to get insight into ACE activity in different compartment s, ACE values in BAL and serum were compared. In active sarcoidosis BA L-procollagen-III-peptide was significantly increased in contrast to t he very low values in inactive disease. In healthy volunteers procolla gen-III-peptide levels were below the detection limit. In BAL no signi ficant differences were found for beta-2-microglobulin, hyaluronan or ACE. Laminin in BAL was not detectable. Serum ACE, significantly enhan ced in sarcoidosis, was not discriminative between active and inactive disease. In conclusion: only procollagen-III-peptide in BAL was found to discriminate between active and inactive disease. Besides cell dif ferentiation and T-helper/suppressor cell (CD4/CD8) ratio in BAL, no f urther biochemical parameters pointing to disease or activity of disea se were found.