Surgical treatment of intrathoracic Castleman′s disease / 解放军医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To review and sum up the clinicopathologic features and surgical therapeutic efficacy of intrathoracic Castleman′s disease (CD). Methods 14 patients with intrathoracic Castleman′s disease, 7 in each sex, aged from 19 to 52, admitted during 1982 to 2005, all underwent surgical treatment, among which 11 with localized type and 3 with multicentric type, were retrospective analyzed on their clinicopathologic features, radiological signs, treatment and prognosis. Results Clinically, 3 patients of localized type were with systematic symptoms; all the patients of multicentric type were with various severity systematic symptoms. Pathological type 9 cases with hyaline vascular type (HV), 2 cases with Plasma type (PC), and 3 cases with Mixed type (Mix). A different pattern of pathologic alterations existed between HV、PC and Mix types of CD. Radiological features in localized type of CD, the lesion presented as a solitary soft-tissue mass with a mean diameter of 5.05cm, the mean CT value was 37.39HU. In 3 cases with multicentric type of CD, diffuse mediastinal lymphadenopathy and pleural effusion were observed. All patients survived after surgical resection, long-term survival was achieved in 11 cases with localized type and 2 cases with multicentric type, no recurrence occurred in the 13 patients. Recurrence occurred twice in a patient with multicentric Mix type in the fourth and the ninth year after surgery, respectively, thus the operative treatment followed. Conclusions The diagnosis of CD is based mainly on its histopathological features. The patients with intrathoracic localized type of CD and part of the patients with multicentric type CD could be cured, while part of the patients with multicentric type CD got a poor therapeutic efficacy and unfavorable prognosis even underwent with radiotherapy and integrated treatment.