Lofgren's syndrome presenting as a case of fever of unknown origin.

A 29-year-old black male had multiple hospital admissions for fever (101 degrees F-104 degrees F) of unknown origin. Over six months, the patient had a constellation of symptoms, including pleuritic chest pain, dry cough, arthralgias of hand joints and marked constitutional symptoms including weigh loss. Patient had erythema nodosum, generalized lymphadenopathy, multiple subcutaneous nodules over the epigastric region and a nodule in his left eye. The patient had bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy, mildly enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes, right upper and lower lobes infiltrate and right side pleural effusion. Patient also had cardiomyopathy with EF 35 percent. Workup for HIV, TB, atypical mycobacterium, infectious mononucleosis, CMV, toxoplasmosis, syphilis and fungal etiologies were negative. Initial rheumatological workup was also negative. Despite a broad spectrum of empiric antibiotics, the patient was having a daily spike of temperature. A left supraclavicular lymph node biopsy showed small non-caseating granuloma typical for sarcoidosis. This patient had fever of unknown origin secondary to a sub acute form of sarcoidosis, with marked constitutional symptoms, bilateral hilar and mediastinal lymphadenopathy, erythema nodosum, and arthralgias--a setof findings sometimes referred to as Lofgren's syndrome.