%0 Journal Article
%T Comparison of relapsing polychondritis patients with and without respiratory involvement based on chest computed tomography: a retrospective cohort study.
%A Wang D
%A Guan L
%A Dong X
%A Zhu X
%A Tong Z
%J BMC Pulm Med
%V 22
%N 1
%D Jun 2022 8
%M 35676691
%F 3.32
%R 10.1186/s12890-022-01955-7
%X BACKGROUND: Relapsing polychondritis (RP) patients with tracheal cartilage involvement are different from other patients. The objective of this study was to compare the clinical features and disease patterns between a respiratory involvement subgroup and a non-respiratory involvement subgroup according to chest computed tomography.
METHODS: We performed a retrospective cohort study collecting RP patients hospitalized at the Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital between January 2012 and August 2021.
RESULTS: Respiratory involvement affected 59.7% of patients in our cohort. The incidence of costochondritis was more common in RP patients with respiratory involvement (p = 0.03); the incidence of inflammatory eye disease (p = 0.001) and auricular chondritis (p = 0.001) was less frequent in RP respiratory involvement patients.. Compared with the non-respiratory involvement subgroup the incidence of pulmonary infection marginally increased in the respiratory involvement subgroup (p = 0.06). Inflammatory indexes except for C-reactive protein to albumin ratio (CAR) were significantly higher in the respiratory involvement subgroup; analysis revealed no significant relationship between inflammatory indexes and pulmonary infection.
CONCLUSIONS: RP patients with respiratory involvement had a greater incidence of costochondritis and pulmonary infectionand lesser incidence of inflammatory eye diseases and auricular chondritis compared to non-respiratory involvement. Increasing inflammatory indexes suggests that patients with respiratory involvement had a higher disease activity index of RP. The difference in probability of survival was insignificant between subgroups.