A case of crescentic glomerulonephritis associated with relapsing polychondritis

Relapsing polychondritis (rp) is a rare autoimmune disease, characterized by recurrentinflammatory episodes affecting various carttilageus structures. renal involvement in rp isunusual. our case was a 42-year old woman presented with nephretic syndrome. diagnosisof rp was made because of recurrent chondritis of both auricles, chondritis of costovertebraljoints, non-erosive inflammatory arthritis of knees, and inflammation of ocular structures.renal biopsy findings revealed diffuse crescentic and sclerotic glomerulonephritis, pauciimmunetype. the diagnosis of rp may be missed when the destructive cartilage feature is notapparent or rare presentation of disease such as ocular or renal involvement preceded othermanifestations. in this case we found that the irregular prednisolone use may prevent destructivecartilage damage but not renal failure of patient. we concluded that the association of crescenticglomerulonephritis in a patient with rp was assumed to be a rare manifestation of this disease.