CLINICAL CASES   

Chirurgia 2009 February;22(1):51-2

Copyright © 2009 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Successful surgical treatment of a rare lymphoproliferative disorder: Castleman’s disease

Baikoussis N. G., Karvelas F. P., Apostolopoulos N. V.

Department of Surgery “Saint Andreas”General Hospital, Patras, Greece

Castleman’s disease (CD) is a lymphoproliferative disorder of uncertain cause. B. Castleman first described this disease characterized by localized mediastinal lymph modes in 1954. We present a case with Castleman’s disease. A 56 year-old male presented to the ambulatory with fever, chills, and axillary lymphadenopathy. In the routine blood test was revealed anemia. The patient had no previous history except the weigh loss. He underwent to excision biopsy of the axillary swelling lymph node and the histopathological examination revealed a rare lymphoproliferative disorder nominated Castleman’s disease. This pathology can occur at any age and at any sex. There are four histological types of CD with different frequency and malignancy. It can be multicentric or it can present as solitary mass. The multicentric type is usually associated with non-specific systemic symptoms like fever and weakness, while the unicentric type has better prognosis and it present without clinical manifestations. Surgical resection for patients with unicentric mass can be curative while surgical resection, radiation and pharmacological therapy are necessary for patients with multicentric disease. Our patient, despite systemic symptoms had a unicentric disease. The excision of the whole lymph node was curative and without supplementary therapy he is disease free in the follow up 6, 12 and 18 months postoperatively.