Sarcoidosis and occupational hazards: a systematic review of research in the countries of the former Soviet Union

The purpose of the review. To summarize the results of studies on the role of harmful factors of the working environment in the development of sarcoidosis, published in Russian and English in the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Material and methods. Following the PRISMA protocol, we searched the databases www.elibrary.ru, IBIS, PubMed and the paper catalog of the Belarusian State Library for descriptions of all available studies performed in 15 countries from the time of the first publication in 1936 until January 2021, in which studied the relationship of harmful factors of the working environment with the development of sarcoidosis. The quality of individual studies was assessed using the ARHQ methodology checklist. Results. Only four studies published between 1996 and 2018 in Russia and Belarus, all in Russian, met the inclusion criteria and were included in the analysis. These studies, with a cross-sectional (75%) and cohort design, found a prevalence of occupational hazards in patients with sarcoidosis ranging from 8 to 61%. The quality of the included studies is very low, with a high risk of selection bias, exposure classification and disease verification errors, and confounding factors. Conclusions. In the countries of the former Soviet Union, research on the role of exposure to harmful factors of the working environment in the development of sarcoidosis has either not been carried out, or very little attention has been paid to them. Evidence for the role of these factors in the development of sarcoidosis collected so far is of low quality, which serves as a basis for planning more high-quality studies. © 2022, Media Sphera Publishing Group. All rights reserved.