Relapsing Polychondritis

Excerpt

Relapsing polychondritis (RP) is a rare autoimmune condition which presents as recurrent episodes of cartilaginous inflammation of the auricular, nasal and tracheal cartilage. Jaksh-Wartenhorst described the first case in 1923, when a 32-year-old patient presented with fever, pain, and swelling of the ears and later developed stenosis of external auditory canal and saddle nose deformity. A biopsy of the nasal cartilage showed the absence of cartilage. The term relapsing polychondritis was coined by Pearson and his coworkers in 1960. They recognized it as an inflammatory condition of the cartilaginous and noncartilaginous structures.