Unusual Mediastinal Tumors Including Castleman’s Disease

Ching Yeung, Sudhir R. Sundaresan

Key Points

  • This chapter will discuss mesenchymal tumors, primary mediastinal carcinoma, and Castleman’s Disease, all rare tumours not covered elsewhere in the book.
  • Literature is largely based on case reports and case series.
  • Castleman’s disease is perhaps the most frequently seen of these rare mediastinal tumours in adults.
  • There is no universally accepted classification system; however, we offer in Table 1 an attempt to unify and summarize the available information about this heterogeneous collection of lesions.
  • CT or MRI may be useful in diagnosis. However, tissue diagnosis is often required to make the definitive diagnosis.
  • Resection is the treatment of choice as chemotherapy and radiation are often not effective.
  • In occasional cases it is wise to onsider pre-operative embolization for some solitary fibrous tumors, hemangiomas and Castleman’s disease.
  • Prognosis is variable and dependent on histology and completeness of resection.

There's more to see -- the rest of this topic is available only to subscribers.

© 2026 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons and Unbound Medicine, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
All content is protected by copyright and may not be used for AI model training or other unauthorized purposes.