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ORPHA:728

Relapsing polychondritis

low confidenceDisorder

Also known as: Polychondropathia

Publications

3,233

Trials

8

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

1,132

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

—

Readiness

2/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare, clinically heterogeneous, multisystemic inflammatory disease characterized by inflammation of the cartilage and proteoglycan rich structures leading to cartilage damage along with joint, ocular and cardiovascular involvement.

How rare: How common this is has not been clearly measured.

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

2/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    3,233 matched papers (1,553 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / HPO

  4. Animal modelNot checked

    Not yet enriched from Monarch / Alliance

  5. Orphan designationNot checked

    FDA/EMA orphan-drug designation not enriched yet

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    8 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov (2 recruiting in sample)

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

Not enriched in this build — Monarch phenotype joins were not run for this record.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

Not enriched in this build.

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

3,233

3,233 papers have been published on this condition. That is a real research literature — still far smaller than common diseases (breast cancer: over 700,000 papers). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=5449) is 41.

3,233 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 41 (publications denominator n=5449).

1,553 in the last 10 years · low confidence

Phrase hits: 3,233 · MeSH hits: 0

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

1,132

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    Pamfil C5 papers · 2026

    Department of Rheumatology, Emergency County Clinical Hospital Cluj, Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Zhang L5 papers · 2026

    State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, National Clinical Research Center for Blood Diseases, Haihe Laboratory of Cell Ecosystem, Institute of Hematology and Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    Arnaud L4 papers · 2026

    Department of Rheumatology, National Reference Center for Rare Autoimmune Diseases (RESO), INSERM UMR-S 1109, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France. Laurent.arnaud@chru-strasbourg.fr.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Bucsa C4 papers · 2026

    ASPOR Association of Romanian Relapsing Polychondritis Patients &, Iuliu Hațieganu University of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Crisafulli F4 papers · 2026

    Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology, Spedali Civili and Department of Clinical and Experimental Sciences, European Reference Network (ERN) for Rare Immunodeficiency, Autoinflammatory and Autoimmune Diseases (RITA) Center, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    Damian L4 papers · 2026

    Department of Rheumatology, Emergency County Teaching Hospital, University of Medicine and Pharmacy Iuliu Hatieganu, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    Grayson PC4 papers · 2026

    National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    Mertz P4 papers · 2026

    Department of Rheumatology, National Reference Center for Rare Autoimmune Diseases (RESO), INSERM UMR-S 1109, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Sharma A4 papers · 2026

    Internal Medicine.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    Zhang J4 papers · 2026

    State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, National Clinical Research Center for Blood Diseases, Haihe Laboratory of Cell Ecosystem, Institute of Hematology and Blood Diseases Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College, Tianjin, China.

    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

8

interventional trials for this specific condition

8 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; 2 currently recruiting in our sample.

Data as of 27 July 2026

8 interventional trials — more than 73% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5114 of 7003; this disease is at the 90.6th percentile).

low confidence · 90.6th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

8 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

Observational and natural-history studies

4 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

Recruiting or not-yet-recruiting

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Where to find support

We do not yet link condition-specific patient organisations. These umbrella groups support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families:

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

"Relapsing polychondritis" OR "Polychondropathia"

Run this search on Europe PMC

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"Relapsing polychondritis" OR "Polychondropathia"

Interventional trials matched via: phrase (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 8 interventional · 4 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase; with hits: phrase

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus
  • Publication count (3233) is extremely high with unknown/missing prevalence — treat as possible over-matching, not proven research intensity

Ingested 2026-07-26T15:04:40.792Z