A case of Castleman disease with hemophagocytic syndrome derived from HHV8 infection

• Main Authors: Xiao Cui, Yongfeng Wu, Lin Jia, Jing Chang, Chuanyun Li, Caiping Guo, Tong Zhang, Yingmin Ma, Yulin Zhang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2021-10-01
• Series: European Journal of Medical Research
• Subjects: Human herpes virus-8; Multicentric Castleman disease; Hemophagocytic syndrome; Metagenomic sequencing technology
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40001-021-00589-5

Abstract Background For a patient presenting with fever, multiple lymphadenopathy and splenomegaly, pathogen infection should be preferentially considered, followed by lymphoid malignancies. When traditional laboratory and pathological detection cannot find the pathogenic microorganism, metagenomic sequencing (MGS) which targets the person’s genome for exceptional genetic disorders may detect a rare pathogen. Case presentation Here, we introduced the diagnostic clue of a case of multicentric Castleman disease (MCD) with hemophagocytic syndrome which was elicited from the detection of human herpesvirus-8 in the blood of a HIV-1 infected person by MGS technology during pathogen inspection. This case highlights the need to increase the awareness of MCD among clinicians and pathologists. Conclusions MGS technology may play a pivotal role in providing diagnostic clues during pathogen inspection, especially when pathogens are not detectable by conventional methods.