Ileocecal ulcers accompanied by relapsing polychondritis: a case report

INTRODUCTION: Mouth and genital ulcers with inflamed cartilage (MAGIC) syndrome is a rare overlap syndrome that includes features characteristic of both Behçet’s disease (BD) and relapsing polychondritis (RP). CASE DESCRIPTION: A 30-year-old female complained of lower abdominal pain and bloody stools during medical treatment for RP. Total colonoscopy revealed oval-shaped deep ulcers on the terminal ileum similar to those of intestinal BD. After performing the ileocecal resection, both RP and gastrointestinal lesions relapsed, but improved with infliximab treatment. DISCUSSION AND EVALUATION: During medical treatment for RP, we experienced a rare case with ileocecal ulcers similar to intestinal BD. Although our case did not meet the diagnosis criteria of intestinal BD because of the lack of BD’s major clinical symptoms, intestinal lesions shared quite similar features with intestinal BD. Our case could possibly be a rare subtype of MAGIC syndrome that had the features characteristic of both intestinal BD and RP. CONCLUSIONS: We described a rare case of ileocecal ulcers without any BD symptoms but accompanied by RP, possibly be a subtype of MAGIC syndrome. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-714) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.