More than six decades after Castleman disease (CD) was first described, a group of experts from Penn Medicine and other institutions around the world has established the first set of diagnostic criteria for a life-threatening subtype of the condition, idiopathic multicentric CD (iMCD), which is often misdiagnosed as other illnesses. Diagnosis of iMCD has been challenging, with no standard diagnostic criteria to guide physicians and significant overlap with cancer and autoimmune, or infectious disorders. The report "International, evidence-based consensus diagnostic criteria for HHV-8-negative/idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease" by senior authors Drs. Kojo Elenitoba-Johnson and Megan Lim was published online ahead of print in the journal Blood. Department members Drs. Adam Bagg, Dale Frank, and Michele Paessler are co-authors.
Read the Department of Communications news announcement.