title: [Assessment of airway lesions using "virtual bronchoscopy" in a patient with relapsing polychondritis].
abstract: A 44-year-old woman was referred to our department complaining of a persistent cough and dyspnea which were resistant to inhaled corticosteroids or a bronchodilator. In addition, she suffered tenderness on the sternum, costicartilage, and bilateral fingers of both hands as well as sensorineural deafness. Virtual bronchoscopy images, re-constituted from three dimensional computed tomography, revealed the thickness of the pan-tracheal wall ranging from the vocal cord towards the bilateral bronchi. These lesions showed an increased uptake in gallium-67 scintigraphy. Enhanced levels of an anti-type II collagen antibody were detected. These findings and symptoms satisfied Damiani's criteria of diagnosis and thus relapsing polychondritis was diagnosed. Treatment with oral prednisolone (40 mg/day) was started. Her cough improved immediately, and two months later virtual bronchoscopy showed improvement in the tracheal wall thickness. The level of the anti-type II collagen antibody was also attenuated, along with a decreased uptake of gallium-67 scintigraphy. However, the virtual bronchoscopy demonstrated that the cartilage ring surrounding the trachea and bronchi remained absent, suggesting the cartilage was already destroyed. Our case demonstrated that virtual bronchoscopy plays a key role in the assessment of airway lesions in relapsing polychondritis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory Medicine, Kyorin University School of Medicine.
authors.forename: Tetsuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yasutake
authors.forename: Keitaro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakamoto
authors.forename: Atsuko
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ohta
authors.forename: Tomoko
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Arai
authors.forename: Hiroo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wada
authors.forename: Hajime
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Goto
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001995:Bronchography / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011081:Polychondritis, Relapsing / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*; D014584:User-Computer Interface