MAGIC or not MAGIC--does the MAGIC (mouth and genital ulcers with inflamed cartilage) syndrome really exist? A case report and review of the literature.

Introduction: In 1985, Firestein et al. described 5 patients with relapsing polychondritis and Behçet's disease (BD) and proposed the term "MAGIC" syndrome as an acronym for "Mouth and Genital ulcers with Inflamed Cartilage". We report on an additional case of this syndrome and critically review the literature.
Results: From 1985 to 2004 eleven cases of MAGIC syndrome were described. All patients had chondritis and oral aphthous ulcers, as well as ocular inflammation (mainly anterior uveitis or scleritis/episcleritis). Most patients also presented with genital ulcers and arthritis. In one case, aortic aneurysm, in another aortic insufficiency was described, one had meningoencephalitis, one had antiphospholipid syndrome and one was HIV positive. Before 1985, we could find 4 additional probable cases. Our own patient presented with oral and genital ulcers, auricular chondritis and episcleritis. HLA-typing was performed and revealed HLA-B*51, B*15, DRB1*04x and DRB1*11x. Only in one Japanese patient from the literature, HLA-typing was available and revealed HLA-B*56, B*62, DRB1*0406 and DRB1*0901.
Conclusions: Relapsing polychondritis is associated with HLA-DRB1*04 suballeles, but not necessarily only with those being associated with RA (DRB1*0401 and 0404). In 2 MAGIC patients these suballeles were found. All patients described in the literature had typical polychondritis, but not all did fulfil the classification criteria for BD. Many features of both diseases overlap and are not specific. As polychondritis is associated with other inflammatory rheumatic conditions such as SLE, spondyloarthropathy, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic vasculitides in 30% of all cases, we suggest that MAGIC syndrome is not a disease entity, but merely the association of BD with polychondritis.