Giant lymphoid hamartoma of mediastinum (Castleman's disease)

The giant lymphoid hamartoma is known as a rare, benign, large, solitary, encapsulated mass of lymphoid tissue. It frequently involves mediastinum or pulmonary hilum. It may also occur in other various locations. Few of the patients may have general symptoms. The disease has been divided into two variants according to microscopic structure. These are hyaline vascular type and plasma-cell type. The hyaline vascular type is benign but the plasma-cell type meets malignancy criteria, so that the plasma-cell type has been subject to discussion whether it is suited to chemotherapy or not. Our case was a 55-year-old male with persistent cough. There was a mass having a size of 6 centimeters on left pulmonary hilum on chest radiograph. Left thoracotomy was performed and a hilar lymphoid mass removed. The biopsy finding was "hyaline vascular type giant lymphoid hamartoma". No other therapy was done. Patient is well six months after the operation.