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Undergoing Chemotherapy For Castleman Disease. Is There A Permanent Cure For It?
Question: Dear Doctor，
We are in China. My dear uncle got Castlman over one year. We tried many hospital in China.
But now he only can contrlled the disease by Chemotherapy and Hormone tablets. He is 65 years now, he has been through five chemotherapy until now. I've been hard about Castlman is rare in the world. But I am still want to ask, is there any way or example could be complete treatment Castlman？Thanks Very Much.
We are in China. My dear uncle got Castlman over one year. We tried many hospital in China.
But now he only can contrlled the disease by Chemotherapy and Hormone tablets. He is 65 years now, he has been through five chemotherapy until now. I've been hard about Castlman is rare in the world. But I am still want to ask, is there any way or example could be complete treatment Castlman？Thanks Very Much.
Hello
Thanks for the query
Castleman disease is a rare form of lympho proliferative disorder. It comes in two forms
1. Unicentric disease: Here only one lymph node is involved and removal of this by surgery carries good prognosis
2. Multi centric form where the proliferative changes are wide spread and more aggressive. This form carries bad prognosis.
Since your uncle has received multiple chemotherapy cycles, I presume he is suffering from the multi centric castleman disease.
It is unfortunate that we haven't found a complete cure yet. There is no fixed treatment regime of chemotherapy for this and also surgical correction is not an option as well.
Current chemotherapy and hormonal therapy have been able to control the symptoms a bit but not complete cure it. I would suggest you to continue the same.
Some drugs such as monoclonal antibodies (Interleukin-6 antibodies) like "Rituximab", Antivirals like "Ganciclovir", Immunomodulators like "Thalidomide" and others are been tried to improve the outcome of this condition. However the results of these trials are yet to be fully established. You may want to discuss about these with his treating physician. Meanwhile it is best that he continues with his hormonal/ chemotherapy drug under supervision of his physician.
I hope I have answered your query, if there are no further queries please accept my answer
I wish your uncle good luck!!
Regards
Thanks for the query
Castleman disease is a rare form of lympho proliferative disorder. It comes in two forms
1. Unicentric disease: Here only one lymph node is involved and removal of this by surgery carries good prognosis
2. Multi centric form where the proliferative changes are wide spread and more aggressive. This form carries bad prognosis.
Since your uncle has received multiple chemotherapy cycles, I presume he is suffering from the multi centric castleman disease.
It is unfortunate that we haven't found a complete cure yet. There is no fixed treatment regime of chemotherapy for this and also surgical correction is not an option as well.
Current chemotherapy and hormonal therapy have been able to control the symptoms a bit but not complete cure it. I would suggest you to continue the same.
Some drugs such as monoclonal antibodies (Interleukin-6 antibodies) like "Rituximab", Antivirals like "Ganciclovir", Immunomodulators like "Thalidomide" and others are been tried to improve the outcome of this condition. However the results of these trials are yet to be fully established. You may want to discuss about these with his treating physician. Meanwhile it is best that he continues with his hormonal/ chemotherapy drug under supervision of his physician.
I hope I have answered your query, if there are no further queries please accept my answer
I wish your uncle good luck!!
Regards
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Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Prasad
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