First described by Dr. Benjamin Castleman in 1956, Castleman disease is an
uncommon disease of an etiology that is not yet thoroughly known. Three distinct
histological subtypes have already been described: hyaline-vascular-, plasma
cell-, and human herpes virus 8-associated variant, clinically distinguished
in multi or unicentric types. Castleman disease is occasionally diagnosed
in children, but more often in young adults, with no gender predominance.
The symptoms are rather heterogeneous, varying from an asymptomatic
mass in the unicentric Castleman disease type, to life-threatening systemic
inflammatory state with systemic symptoms in the multicentric Castleman
disease type. The authors report a case of a 15-year-old boy who sought
medical attention due to a cervical tumor mass, without systemic symptoms.
Pathology exam of the excised mass diagnosed a very typical example of the
hyaline-vascular unicentric type of Castleman disease.
