Castleman's disease of the head and neck

Castleman's disease is an uncommon benign disease that causes progressive lymph node enlargement. We report 12 cases of Castleman's disease in the head and neck region in a retrospective review of the medical records of all patients with the pathological diagnosis of Castleman's disease during the period of 1993 through 2002. In the 12 patients, the neck was the most commonly involved site with 9 (75%) cases. Level III was the most common subsite (five cases). The most common sign in our study was an asymptomatic neck mass. No patient had any past histories that required medical attention. Preoperative work up such as fine-needle aspiration and radiographic study was not helpful for diagnostic confirmation. The histopathologic evaluation was the only way to make a definitive diagnosis. The histopathologic subtype of our study was hyaline-vascular type. Excision was curative for all cases. There was no evidence of recurrence with a minimum follow-up duration of 24 months.