Anesthesia in a patient with acute respiratory insufficiency due to relapsing polychondritis.

We report on a male patient with advanced relapsing polychondritis (RP), who was hospitalized for an ophthalmologic intervention. He had to undergo a tracheostomy with general anesthesia due to respiratory decompensation. RP is a rare systemic, inflammatory, and destructive disease of the cartilaginous structures leading to multiple functional disorders in the affected organs. Involvement of the tracheobronchial tract may cause severe respiratory problems and even life-threatening respiratory insufficiency. Treatment consists of corticoids, chemotherapy, antirheumatics, and surgical intervention. Anesthesiologic management requires careful preoperative evaluation of vital organ functions, in particular respiration, so that the anesthetic approach can be tailored to the individual needs of each patient.