[Association of Castleman's disease and Hodgkin's disease. Eight cases and review of the literature].

Abstract

We have recorded 8 patients presenting a Hodgkin's disease associated with Castleman's disease. Four men and 4 women with a 44 years mean age (15-60), presented as a solitary mass (2/7) or as a multicentric tumoral disease (5/7). One of our patients was HIV. Histological studies showed typical features of Castleman's disease. Nodular sclerosing Hodgkin's disease with numerous lacunar cells were present in 3 cases, interfollicular Hodgkin's disease in 4 cases and nodular paragranuloma in one case. Hodgkins' and Reed Sternberg cells were positive for CD15 (4/7), CD30 (5/7), EMA (3/6) and LMP-1 (4/5). In situ hybridization on tissue sections demonstrate presence of EBV DNA in one case and EBER1-RNA in 2 of 4 cases. The difficulty in making the diagnosis of Hodgkin's disease the relation between both diseases, and the role of IL-6 are discussed.