The clinicopathological behaviour and surgical treatment of abdominal Castleman's disease

Castleman's disease, a rare atypical lymphoproliferative disorder of the lymphoid tissue with unknown cause, remains a diagnostic challenge. This study was conducted to analyse the clinicopathological behaviour and reasonable surgical treatment for patients with abdominal Castleman's disease.

The medical records of seven patients with abdominal Castleman's disease were reviewed.

The patients comprised two men and five women, and their median age was 42.3 (range 29-53) years. The main clinical manifestation was an abdominal mass or an enlargement of the retroperitoneal lymph node. Other clinical manifestations included anaemia, loss of body weight and hypoalbuminaemia. The mean size of the tumour was 5.5 (range 4.0-8.0) cm. Postoperatively, all the patients were diagnosed with a hyaline vascular type of the disease, and had localised manifestations of the disease. All seven patients underwent complete surgical resection, two of whom also received adjuvant irregular chemotherapy (CHOP) and steroids postoperatively. All the patients survived, with no evidence of recurrence. One patient had survived for more than two years, four patients for more than three years, and two patients for more than five years.

Abdominal Castleman's disease is difficult to diagnose preoperatively, and surgical excision remains the treatment of choice, especially for localised disease.