Treatment of multicentric Castleman disease (CD) is much more difficult. Surgery is used for the diagnosis, but the disease is too widespread to remove it all with surgery. Occasionally people are helped when some of the diseased tissue is removed. There is no standard therapy for multicentric CD. No single treatment works for most patients. Several types of treatment, however, have been successful in some patients. Doctors will try one or a combination of them to put the disease in remission. Corticosteroids, chemotherapy, and immune therapy have been helpful. Radiation is sometimes used. Anti-viral drugs in addition to anti-HIV treatment may also help. In about half of patients the disease completely disappears. This is less likely to happen in patients with HIV/AIDS. Even if the HIV infection is under control with drug treatment, the CD disease is not likely to go away.

Corticosteroids and chemotherapy have produced long remissions for some patients. In other patients, the benefit does not last long and the symptoms worsen after the course of therapy is done. Some patients do not respond to these drugs at all.

Last Medical Review: 08/03/2009
Last Revised: 08/03/2009