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A 46-year-old woman with uveitis was referred to our respiratory diseases department in July 2018. Her medical history included transient bilateral hilar mediastinal lymphadenopathy (BHL) and multiple pulmonary nodules in May 2013 during pegylated interferon-alpha and ribavirin treatment for chronic hepatitis C infection. Five years post-treatment, chest X-ray revealed BHL and nodular recurrence. A biopsy of the subcutaneous buttock nodules revealed scattered non-caseating epithelioid granulomas with positive PAB immunohistochemical staining. This seem to be the first report of Propionibacterium acnes-associated sarcoidosis possibly initially triggered by interferon-alpha therapy. Understanding the mechanisms underlying interferon-triggered P. acnes-associated sarcoidosis may clarify the sarcoidosis immunopathogenesis.

We herein report a rare case of pulmonary sarcoidosis leading to chronic respiratory failure with restrictive ventilatory impairment during a 53-year-long observation period. Nine years after the histological diagnosis of stage I sarcoidosis on chest X-ray in a woman in her 20s, she developed bilateral reticular and granular opacities on chest computed tomography and was started on prednisone for 18 years. Seven years after prednisone withdrawal, these persisting opacities around the bronchovascular bundle, including a central-peripheral band, had progressed, forming traction bronchiectasis clusters and peripheral cysts, some of which developed continuously at the distal side of these clusters, with eventual upper lobe shrinkage.