{"doi":"10.1002/art.41270","title":"Defining Clinical Subgroups in Relapsing Polychondritis: A Prospective Observational Cohort Study","abstract":"OBJECTIVE: Relapsing polychondritis (RP) is a systemic disease. Failure to recognize RP can lead to diagnostic delay and further complications, including death. This study was undertaken to identify clinical patterns in a prospective cohort of patients with RP. METHODS: Patient subgroups were identified using latent class analysis based on 8 clinical variables: saddle-nose deformity, subglottic stenosis, tracheomalacia, bronchomalacia, ear chondritis, tenosynovitis/synovitis, inflammatory eye disease, and audiovestibular disease. Model selection was based on Akaike's information criterion. RESULTS: Seventy-three patients were included in this study. Patients were classified into 1 of 3 subgroups: type 1 RP (14%), type 2 RP (29%), and type 3 RP (58%). Type 1 RP was characterized by ear chondritis (100%), tracheomalacia (100%), saddle-nose deformity (90%), and subglottic stenosis (80%). These patients had the shortest median time to diagnosis (1 year), highest disease activity, and greatest frequency of admission to the intensive care unit and tracheostomy. Type 2 RP was characterized by tracheomalacia (100%) and bronchomalacia (52%), but no saddle-nose deformity or subglottic stenosis. These patients had the longest median time to diagnosis (10 years) and highest percentage of work disability. Type 3 RP was characterized by tenosynovitis/synovitis (60%) and ear chondritis (55%). There were no significant differences in sex, race, or treatment strategies between the 3 subgroups. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that there are 3 subgroups of patients with RP, with differences in time to diagnosis, clinical and radiologic characteristics, and disease-related complications. Recognizing a broader spectrum of clinical patterns in RP, beyond cartilaginous involvement of the ear and upper airway, may facilitate more timely diagnosis.","journal":"Arthritis & Rheumatology","year":2020,"id":58094,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":74,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9539,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":274832,"name":"Casey A. Rimland","orcid":"0000-0002-5187-6921","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":304339,"name":"Kaitlin A. Quinn","orcid":"0000-0003-0101-1580","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":218220,"name":"Keith A. Sikora","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":271539,"name":"Jeff Kim","orcid":"0000-0002-7246-8935","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":260382,"name":"Clint Allen","orcid":"0000-0001-6586-5804","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":304340,"name":"Arlene Sirajuddin","orcid":"0000-0001-9183-5983","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":218243,"name":"Wendy Goodspeed","orcid":null,"position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":235792,"name":"Marcus Y. Chen","orcid":"0000-0003-0743-9369","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":5958,"name":"Peter C. Grayson","orcid":"0000-0002-8269-9438","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":218219,"name":"Marcela A. Ferrada","orcid":"0000-0003-3256-3273","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":16,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:07:11.345501Z","pmid":"32249511","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}