Step 1: The phrase almost always associated signals a most common association question. Papillary necrosis has a short, classic list of causes often remembered by the mnemonic involving diabetes, obstruction with infection, sickle cell disease, analgesics and pyelonephritis.
Step 2: Among the offered options, diabetes mellitus heads that list. Diabetic microangiopathy reduces papillary blood supply, and when acute pyelonephritis is superimposed the poorly perfused papillae undergo coagulative necrosis with a clear line between dead and living tissue.
Step 3: Analgesic nephropathy is a real but less frequent cause, chronic pyelonephritis is contributory rather than the defining association, and post streptococcal glomerulonephritis injures glomeruli, not papillae. So diabetes mellitus is the strongest single answer.
\[\boxed{\text{Diabetes mellitus is the usual association}}\]