Table 1. Clinical characteristics of the enrolled sarcoidosis patients (n = 42).

	Stable group	Relapse group	P-value
No. of patients	22	20
Age	44.1±12.2	43.2±8.5	0.51
Sex (male/female)	4/18	3/17
Duration of previous prednisone (months)	18.3±10.3	14.5±8.7	<0.01
Smoking history*	5	6
Extrapulmonary involvement
Cardiac/skin/ocular	1/2/2	2/5/3
Laboratory tests
ESR (mm/h)	30.77±12.6	40.9±16.8	0.043
hsCRP (mg/l)	6.15±4.7	7.9±5.7	0.39
Serum ACE (U/L)	32.7±9.1	54.7±14.8	<0.01
Pulmonary function
FEV1% pred	92.4±6.42	83.9±8.2	<0.01
DLCO% pred	88.6±4.81	80.79±7.4	<0.01

* All of the patients who smoked were forbidden to smoke during the follow-up period

Data are presented as the mean ± standard deviation