Familial Sarcoidosis: About Two Brothers And Prevalence Value In A Middle Eastern City

Sarcoidosis is a systemic disease with no definite etiology, but a lot of potential precipitating factors. Familial sarcoidosis was mentioned in the literature long time ago and has been associated with different HLA phenotypes with a prevalence reaching values up to 4% and more; however, it was never studied in the Middle East. This article reports a case of sarcoidosis in two Lebanese brothers with the HLA phenotype related and estimates the prevalence of familial sarcoidosis in all cases of sarcoidosis treated by internists and pneumologists in a regional hospital where these brothers were treated. In our study, the HLA type (DRB) was similar to the familial polish cases and the familial prevalence of around 1.4 %, was much lower than that reported elsewhere.