Report of a Case With Clinical and Pathologic Features of Castleman Disease That Predates Castleman's Report by More Than 50 Years

Abstract

Context.— In 1954, Benjamin Castleman, MD, described what was then believed to be a new entity in lymph node pathology. Initially labeled “Hyperplasia of the mediastinal node” and then “Localized mediastinal lymph node hyperplasia resembling thymoma,” we now recognize the condition with the eponym “Castleman disease.” We document a paper that describes the same condition, a half century before Castleman did. Objective.— To report the striking resemblance between Castleman disease and the lymph node reported in the paper published by Edwin R. LeCount, MD, titled “Lymphoma, a benign tumor representing a lymph gland in structure,” published in Journal of Experimental Medicine in 1899. We also provide an overview of the remarkable achievements of LeCount. Design.— We compared the elucidation in the original paper by LeCount with the morphologic details in the papers published by Castleman et al. Material on the life of LeCount was compiled from the scientific literature, the Internet, and the files of the University of Chicago. Results.— LeCount's description and illustrations of the lymph node are uncannily similar to the onion-skinning and vascularity that Castleman documented. Conclusions.— LeCount deserves credit for his depiction of a hitherto-unreported entity.