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 deco mpensation. RP is a rare systemic, inflammatory, and destructive disea se of the cartilaginous structures leading to multiple functional diso rders in the affected organs. Involvement of the tracheobronchial trac t may cause severe respiratory problems and even life-threatening resp iratory 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 tailor ed to the individual needs of each patient.