Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis associated with sarcoidosis.

We report a rare association of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with incidental pulmonary and muscle sarcoidosis. A 63-year-old woman presented with slowly progressive weakness and atrophy of the extremities starting from the left leg. The biopsy of a small mass in the left gastrocnemius revealed a typical sarcoid nodule. She was treated with corticosteroid for possible sarcoid neuromyopathy. In spite of the treatment, her clinical course was relentlessly progressive and she died of bulbar palsy. Autopsy revealed a loss of motor neurons in the anterior horn, vacuolar degeneration of the lateral funiculus, and noncaseating granulomas in paratracheal lymph nodes and lungs. No granulomatous lesion or cellular infiltration was found in the spinal cord.(Internal Medicine 40: 822-825, 2001)