Elizabeth Arkema

Sarcoidosis is an inflammatory disease that primarily affects the lungs, but other organs can also be affected. Sweden has the highest incidence of sarcoid in the world with 1100 new diagnoses per year. The disease has a significant negative impact on the quality of life and reduces life expectancy. Previous research suggests that sarcoid is linked to cancer because they share a defective immune system. Sarcoidosis patients are more often affected by cancer, moreover, sarcoidosis usually occurs after treatment in cancer patients. Knowledge of a link between sarcoid and cancer is limited because it is difficult to explore two diseases that are challenging to diagnose. We will combine large data sets from health data and quality registries with more detailed information from patient records. We will apply epidemiological methods to investigate whether sarcoid patients develop malignancy more frequently than the general population. In addition, we will investigate whether cancer patients are more often affected by sarcoid and whether the treatment affects the risk of developing sarcoid. Clinical information will be examined in detail from patients with both sarcoid and malignancy to validate the diagnoses with the goal of reducing misclassifications of sarcoid and malignancy, respectively, in the future. Our results will lead to new fundamental knowledge. This knowledge is necessary to improve our strategy for diagnosing and treating both sarcoid and cancer. Our research will lead to better understanding of how sarcoid and malignancy are related to each other. We want to identify factors that make it easier to distinguish between malignancy and sarcoid, so that unnecessary treatments and tests can be avoided.