Tumor enucleation for Castleman’s disease in the pulmonary hilum: a case report

BACKGROUND: The development of Castleman’s disease in the pulmonary hilum is extremely rare. Although resection of only the lesion is sufficient because of its benign nature, lobectomy or more extensive procedures performed for the pulmonary hilar tumor have been reported. CASE PRESENTATION: The patient was a 15-year-old male with a tumor in the right pulmonary hilum. Endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration was performed but no specific findings were obtained from the cytological and histological evaluation. 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography showed moderate accumulation in the tumor, which suggested potential malignancy. Intraoperative frozen section diagnosis did not show any malignant findings. Thus, we performed only tumor enucleation without any lung resection. The pathological diagnosis was hyaline vascular type Castleman’s disease. No recurrence has been observed for seven years. CONCLUSION: Because hyaline vascular type Castleman’s disease in solitary pulmonary hilar tumor is one of the benign diseases common in young people, intraoperative frozen section diagnosis is recommended to avoid unnecessary lung resection.