ABSTRACT
Epidemiologic studies on sarcoidosis have been published since the early
1950s. The early studies were based mostly on hospital patients and reported
age, sex, and race distributions along with the clinical picture of the disease.
Reports on familial sarcoidosis suggest a possible infectious or environmental etiology. Reports of differences in seasonal/regional/geographical
distributions of sarcoidosis were published, but the methods by which the
investigators had collected their cases varied significantly. Other interesting
features noted earlier were some local clusterings of sarcoidosis and relation-
ships between prevalence of tuberculosis and sarcoidosis. These types of
reports are either descriptive describing the distribution of the disease or ana-
lytical focusing on determinants of the described distribution. These aspects
of sarcoidosis epidemiology are presented in Chapter 2. Epidemiological research has significantly developed in recent dec-
ades. Methodology has improved in line with more detailed descriptions
of the sarcoidosis disease. Interesting data related to peoples’ migration
have been reported. Attention has been paid to space-time clustering, but
still no single transmissible agent causing sarcoidosis has been identified.
The most recent epidemiological studies on sarcoidosis have been
discussed in Chapter 2.
