Post renal transplant Castleman's disease resolved after graft nephrectomy: a case report

Angiofollicular lymphoid hyperplasia (Castleman's disease) is a lymphoproliferative process thought to be mediated by overexpression of II interleukin-6. Castleman's disease has two variants: Castleman's disease has two variants: Hyaline vascular type and plasma cell variant (multicentric Castleman's disease). The hyaline vascular type tends to be localized, and the plasma cell variant shows more systematic signs and carriers a worse clinical prognosis. Castleman's disease is associated with B-cell lymphoma, Kaposi sarcoma, Human herpes virus 8 (HHV-8), and Epstein-Barr virus. Castleman's disease have been described thrice post kidney transplant. In this report, we document the course of a renal recipient who developed the plasma cell variant of Castleman's disease at 16 months after failure of his allograft and return to dialysis. He displayed clinical resolution of this complication after graft nephrectomy. To our knowledge, this is the first case where the disease manifestations disappeared after graft removal. Our patient experienced chronic renal allograft rejection which may have driven all the systematic manifestations of multicentric castleman's disease and possibly reactivated a latent HHV-8 infection. In this case immunohistochemical testing for HHV-8 was not available to prove a role for this agent.