Hydroxychloroquine therapy of diffuse pulmonary sarcoidosis in two Australian male children.

Sarcoidosis is a chronic granulomatous disease, seen infrequently in children, with the capacity to affect multiple systems. The incidence and prevalence of the disease in children is largely unknown but is dependent on many factors including: age, race and geographical location. There have been very few studies of sarcoidosis in Australian (Aboriginal or white) children. Diffuse pulmonary sarcoidosis is very rare in non-Scandinavian white Caucasian children, yet in the winter of 1992 two Caucasian males, aged 11.1 and 10.5 years were seen at the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. Both boys had pulmonary sarcoidosis and after an initial trial of treatment with steroids responded well to hydroxychloroquine therapy.