Table 1.

Characteristics of the study population

	Sarcoidosis	Controls
	n = 35	n = 35	p*
Male	74 %	49 %	0.03
Age, mean years (SD§)	55.3 (10.9)	66.3 (7.6)	< 0.01
Pulmonary function, mean % of predicted (SD§)
FEV1	85 (15.4)	103 (11.5)	< 0.01
FVC	98 (13.8)	111 (12.5)	< 0.01
DLCO	88 (11.9)	94 (13.1)	0.09
Smoking habits			< 0.01
Current smoker	6%	23 %
Ex smoker	46%	66 %
Never smoker	48%	11 %
BAL cell content %, mean (SD§)
Macrophages	71.8 (19.5)	83.6 (11.5)	< 0.01
Neutrophils	4.5 (13.6)	3.8 (4.6)	0.80
Lymphocytes	22.2 (18.7)	12.1 (9.2)	< 0.01
Eosinophils	1.5 (2.3)	0.5 (0.8)	0.02
Antimicrobial peptides in BAL, median (IQR§)
SLPI†, ng/ml	95 (48–175)	187 (144–241)	< 0.01
hBD-1‡, pg/ml	153 (108–331)	329 (235–500)	< 0.01
hBD-2‡, pg/ml	10 (10–10)	10 (10–10)	0.38
Inflammatory marker in plasma, mean (SD§)
Leukocyte particle count (LPK), 10^9/L	5.5 (2.1)	6.5 (2.0)	0.05

*p for differences in sex and smoking habits tested by Pearson chi square. Differences in age, lung function, BAL cell content, and inflammatory markers tested by ANOVA. Differences in antimicrobial peptides tested by Kruskal-Wallis test

^†Secretory leucocyte protease inhibitor (SLPI)

^‡human beta defensins 1 and 2 (hBD-1 and hBD-2)

^§Standard deviation (SD), interquartile range (IQR)