Epidemiological characteristics of sarcoidosis patients hospitalized in the Uuniversity Hospital for Lung Diseases "Jordanovac" (Zagreb, Croatia) in the 1997-2002 period.

The aim of our study was to explore the characteristics of hospitalized patients with sarcoidosis concerning age, gender, clinical forms and staging, seasonality, geographical distribution, smoking habit and profession, familial clustering and mortality. We included 476 biopsy-proven sarcoidosis patients who were diagnosed at the University Hospital for Lung Diseases "Jordanovac" in the period from 1997-2002. Most of the patients (44%) were in the group of age between 20 and 40 years. The ratio of women to men was 1.4:1. The onset of the disease usually appeared in spring and summer, especially in the patients presenting with erythema nodosum, with majority of patients hospitalized in the period from May to August (51%). More patients came from urban, than from rural areas (1.5:1), and they were mostly nonsmokers (3.3:1). In 2% of sarcoidosis patients we found familial clustering. Although these data are biased regarding the selection of patients they give new insights into characteristics of sarcoidosis patients in Croatia.