Schaumann bodies
Summary
Schaumann bodies are laminated, concentric calcium and protein inclusions found within the giant cells of the non-caseating granulomas of sarcoidosis. They are characteristic but not pathognomonic, since they also occur in berylliosis and other granulomatous disease.
Detail
Schaumann bodies are round, blue-purple, shell-like concretions of calcium salts and iron laid down in concentric lamellae inside multinucleated giant cells. Together with asteroid bodies, which are stellate eosinophilic inclusions in the same giant cells, they form the classic microscopic pair associated with sarcoidosis. Neither is diagnostic on its own: sarcoidosis remains a diagnosis of exclusion requiring non-caseating granulomas plus exclusion of infection, particularly tuberculosis and fungal disease, and of berylliosis, which is clinically and histologically near-identical. Sarcoidosis classically affects Black women in the third to fifth decades and presents with bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy, restrictive lung disease, elevated serum ACE, and hypercalcaemia from 1-alpha-hydroxylase activity in the granulomas.
Sources
- Robbins Basic Pathology
- First Aid for the USMLE Step 1
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