[Anatomo-clinical features of Castleman tumour. Report of a case with a membrano-proliferative glomerulonephritis (author's transl)].

A case of retro-peritoneal lymphoid angio-follicular hyperplasia or Castleman's pseudo-tumour with normochromic hormocytic anemia and membrano-proliferative glomerulonephritis is reported in a 53 year-old man. Since the first description by Castleman in 1954, 259 other cases have been published. The anatomo-clinical study of our observation and of 198 cases collected in the literature bears out 3 types of clinical forms, according to the location of the pseudo-tumour: mediastinal, superficial and abdominal. The first ones generally asymptomatic are the most frequent whereas the last ones, less common, are often associated with biological abnormalities. In spite of these differences such neoformations present the same morphologic features. They are round or ovoid and well delimited by a capsule. Under this capsule a lymphoid vascular tissue surrounds follicules with central capillaries or arterioles. When plasma cells infiltrate the stroma, perturbations such as anemia or hypoalbunemia appear. Besides a nephrotic syndrome has been discovered in our observation and in that of Humpherys. In all the cases the removal of the pseudo-tumour induces the retrogression of the biological abnormalities and of the nephrotic syndrome. Neither a recidive nor another location of the disease are noticed later on. This evolution is probably the fact of a benign hyperplatic process which grows after an antigenic stimulation.