Objective: To summarize the clinical features, treatment and prognosis of giant lymph node hyperplasia (Castleman's disease, CD).
Methods: The clinical data of 43 CD patients with the tumor located in neck (n = 10), chest (n = 20), abdomen (n = 9) and multi-centers (n = 4) were analyzed.
Results: All the patients underwent surgical resection of tumor or lymph and the patients of multicentric disease underwent adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy. All the diagnoses of CD were confirmed by pathological examination. Among all the cases, 26 patients were hyaline vascular subtype (HV), 16 patients plasma cell subtype (PC) and 1 patient mixed subtype. All 39 patients of unicentric disease survived without disease evidence. 2 patients of multicentric disease died at 18 months and 54 months after surgery; 1 patient survived with disease; 1 patient survived with no evidence of disease.
Conclusion: Giant lymph node hyperplasia is a rare disease. The diagnosis depends mainly on the pathological examination. Surgery is the best choice for unicentric disease with an excellent prognosis. Patients with multicentric disease may benefit from surgery, adjuvant chemotherapy or radiotherapy, but the prognosis remains grim.