Hi, I'm 45 years old and I have a what I think to be a great problem. Approximately 2 weeks ago a strange pump had appeared in my armpit. I went to my doctor and he said that this is probably an enlarged lymphatic node, gave me some antibiotics for it and sent me home. After a week nothing had changed, the bump was still there so he decided I should do a biopsy of that node to see whether it is cancer or not. The biopsy showed that I have the Castleman’s disease. The doctor said that it is nothing serious and that I should be cured. I would like to know more about this disease and about how I got it?
Castleman’s disease is a very rare disorder affecting the lymphatic tissue allover the body. There are many forms of Castleman’s disease, one of the most common is unilocular form which affects usually one area of the body, one lymphatic node or a group of nodes. It is characterized by lymphatic proliferation and node enlargement which is not cancerogenic as opposed to some other forms of lymphatic node enlargement. The cause of this form of the disease is unknown, since the disorder is rare any research aimed at discovering the cause of the disease is made difficult. There is one other form of Castleman’s disease that is called plasma cell type or multicentric variant of the disease. This type is much more severe, it is malign and the prognosis is not good. If you had this change in only one of your nodes and if the node was surgically removed then it is probably unilocular form of the disease and it is cured by the act of surgical excision of the node. You shouldn’t worry about it and if you have any such changes in the future be sure to report them to your doctor.