New Biomarkers Show Promise for Diagnosing Sarcoidosis

The Diagnosis of pulmonary sarcoidosis typically involves clinical evaluation, histologic identification of noncaseating granulomas, and exclusion of other conditions, leading to an average diagnosis period of 3 to 12 months for about 75% of patients. Current efforts to establish rapid, noninvasive diagnostic methods using immune biomarkers have largely been unsuccessful due to insufficient sensitivity and specificity. While genetic variants and panels of gene transcripts or proteins have been proposed, these tests lack systematic validation. A recent study by Peng and colleagues introduces a novel, noninvasive assay employing peripheral blood mononuclear cells, revealing two new antigens, cofilinμ and chain A, which exhibit high sensitivity and specificity for sarcoidosis IgG responses compared to diseased and healthy control subjects.