[MDCT and MRI findings of localized Castleman's disease and its pathological basis]

To evaluated the multi-detector CT (MDCT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) features of localized Castleman's disease (CD), we retrospectively analyzed the clinical data, MDCT and MRI findings of 13 patients with CD proved pathologically. All patients underwent plain MDCT scan, 11 underwent enhanced CT, and 2 MRI. 14 lesions were detected in the 13 patients, and all of them were hyaline-vascular type (HV-CD) histopathologically. On plain MDCT scans, all lesions were homogeneously attenuated soft tissue mass; intra-tumoral calcification with punctate and "arborizing" patterns was detected in the center of 2 lesions each. Of the patients with enhanced MDCT, all lesions showed obvious enhancement homogeneously except two lesions with central stellate and 1 lesion with dotted low attenuation. Tortuous vessels could be revealed at the periphery of 8 lesions. Of the 2 patients with MRI, the lesions showed slightly hyper-intensity on T1WI, hyper-intensity on T2WI and marked homogenous enhancement. In addition, one of them showed signal void appearance in the center on unenhanced MRI and large supplying artery with tortuous vessels at the periphery on enhanced MRI. In a word, Localized HV-CD usually demonstrated as soft tissue mass with obvious enhancement on MDCT and MRI. Central stellate area of low attenuation and calcification with punctate or "arborizing" pattern may also be present.