Castleman disease of the spine mimicking a nerve sheath tumor

Castleman disease is a rare lymphoproliferative disease of unknown cause. In most cases, afflicted patients present with a mediastinal mass although the disease may manifest in numerous other sites, including intracranially and rarely intraspinally. The authors report on the case of a 19-year-old woman who presented with a large paraspinal mass emanating from the T7-8 neural foramen. The morphological and signal characteristics revealed on magnetic resonance imaging were similar to those of nerve sheath tumors. The patient underwent open biopsy sampling of the lesion, and results of a pathological evaluation revealed hyaline-vascular type Castleman disease. She underwent radiotherapy and remains symptom-free with a radiographically stable lesion 1 year later. Although the disease has been reported to mimic a meningioma when encountered in intracranial locations, to the authors' knowledge, this is the first case of the disorder mimicking a nerve sheath tumor. When the diagnosis of Castleman disease is made, good results can be obtained with partial resection and radiotherapy.