[Castleman's disease. Discussion related to case report]

Castleman's disease, also called angiofollicular hyperplasia was first described as a distinct entity by Castleman et al in 1956. Now there are described two forms, a localised and a multicentric one. All forms of disease share the same histopathological features with a highly characteristic angiofollicular lymphoid hyperplasia which is either hyalinovascular or plasmocytic. The clinical and biological signs are varied and heterogeneous. The disorder is of unknown origin, but interleukin 6 plays a central part in this disease. Despite the benignity of this "prelymphoma state", an aggressive course with poor prognosis occur usually in the multicentric form. We report a case of Castleman's disease, multicentric variant. This case provides the opportunity for discussing many aspects of this atypical lymphoproliferative disorder.