Pe. Oreilly et al., MULTICENTRIC CASTLEMANS DISEASE IN A CHILD WITH PROMINENT THYMIC INVOLVEMENT - A CASE-REPORT AND BRIEF REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE, Modern pathology, 6(6), 1993, pp. 776-780
A fatal case of multicentric Castleman's disease (giant lymph node hyp
erplasia) with prominent thymic involvement in a 12-yr-old girl is pre
sented. Multicentric Castleman's disease is a poorly understood lympho
proliferative disorder generally occurring in elderly individuals. To
our knowledge, this is the first case in the English literature of mul
ticentric Castleman's disease in a child. Thymic involvement has not b
een described previously in the multicentric variant or in a child. Be
sides the characteristic findings of Castleman's disease (CD), such as
hyaline-vascular follicles and a prominent plasmacytic infiltrate, th
e thymus was also marked by prominent epithelial hyperplasia in the me
dulla. The clinical and pathologic findings are presented with a revie
w of the literature, particularly thymic involvement in CD and CD in t
he pediatric population.