Resources For Physicians & Researchers

Up-to-date resources for physicians & researchers treating or researching Castleman disease

- The latest clinical guidance for diagnosing and treating patients across all subtypes of Castleman disease, curated by the CDCN. This section links to the three CD pages on UpToDate—covering unicentric CD, HHV-8-associated multicentric CD, and HHV-8-negative/idiopathic multicentric CD—all authored by Dr. David Fajgenbaum, a leading Castleman disease researcher. It also provides the full text of the first-ever international, evidence-based diagnostic criteria for idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD), published in Blood in 2017, and the first-ever iMCD treatment guidelines, published in Blood in 2018. Additional resources include compiled evidence for iMCD treatment targets and a pathology toolkit outlining the histopathologic features of CD. Parallel diagnostic and treatment guidelines for unicentric CD are also referenced as this area of research continues to advance.

- A continually updated library of full-text PDFs covering the most significant peer-reviewed literature on Castleman disease, spanning foundational papers through the newest 2025 research. Entries can be filtered by disease subtype—including UCD, iMCD, HHV-8-positive MCD, TAFRO, and oligocentric CD—and by topic, such as causes and mechanism, clinical observations, diagnostic criteria, disease overview, and treatment. The collection brings together landmark work like the international consensus diagnostic criteria and treatment guidelines, natural history findings from the ACCELERATE registry, and studies on IL-6-directed and emerging therapies. It serves as a single, organized starting point for clinicians and researchers who want to review the evidence base or stay current with the field.

- A teaching resource in which top international pathologists share how they arrive at a Castleman disease diagnosis based on histopathology. The toolkit is organized into five modules—Disease Overview, Pathology of Castleman Disease, Clinical Manifestations, Important Differential Diagnoses, and Case Studies—and walks through the key histologic variants (hyaline vascular, plasma cell, mixed, and plasmablastic) alongside the clinical and laboratory context needed to interpret them. Because CD is a diagnosis of exclusion, the material emphasizes ruling out mimics such as follicular hyperplasia, follicular lymphoma, HIV lymphadenopathy, and mantle cell lymphoma, and stresses correlating pathology with clinical findings and HHV-8/HIV testing. It concludes with a series of expert-led case study videos featuring Drs. Jan Delabie, Ahmet Dogan, and Falko Fend. The toolkit is intended to help identify potential cases of this rare and sometimes life-threatening disease rather than to serve as a complete diagnostic guide.

- An overview of where Castleman disease research stands and where it is headed, reflecting the CDCN’s community-driven approach to setting research priorities. This resource lays out the overarching research questions the field has identified, along with a number of specific questions that have been pursued over roughly the last eight years. It offers physicians and researchers a clear picture of the knowledge gaps that remain—from disease mechanisms and biomarkers to treatment targets—and how the CDCN’s collaborative network works to address them. Reviewing it is a useful way to understand current momentum in the field and to identify opportunities for future study and collaboration.