RELAPSING POLYCHONDRITIS IN RHEUMATOLOGY PRACTICE

Abstract

The paper provides a clinical description of relapsing polychondritis, a rare systemic immunoinflammatory disease that was characterized by fever episodes, cartilage damage, and reactive arthritis. Diagnostic searching could rule out an infectious disease (by determining a wide variety of potential pathogens), as well as a septic condition due to a pronounced leukemoid reaction of the myeloid type, and the presence of toxigenic neutrophil granulation in peripheral blood and bone marrow. All available clinical, functional, and radiological studies were used to make a differential diagnosis with paraneoplastic syndrome due to blood disease, primarily with myeloma. The data obtained could interpret the changes only as reactive. No increased autoantibody titers were identified. Clinical symptoms and the good effect of prednisolone therapy allowed a diagnosis of relapsing polychondritis, a rare disease that belongs to the group of immunoinflammatory diseases according to the current ideas. It is suggested that autoinflammation plays a role in its pathogenesis.

Keywords

• relapsing polychondritis
• autoinflammation
• autoimmunity