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CASE REPORT article

Front. Hematol.

Sec. Blood Cancer

Two cases of Idiopathic Plasmacytic Lymphadenopathy subtype of Idiopathic Multicentric Castleman Disease with xanthelasma palpebrum from a Canadian center

Provisionally accepted
Andrew  ChenAndrew Chen1Vivian  YinVivian Yin2Paula  BlancoPaula Blanco2Richard  CrawfordRichard Crawford2Ryan  HenrieRyan Henrie2Stephen  ParkinStephen Parkin2Nasreen  KhalilNasreen Khalil2Mollie  CarruthersMollie Carruthers2Lu  ZhangLu Zhang3Luke  ChenLuke Chen2*
  • 1Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
  • 2University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
  • 3Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Beijing, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Background: Idiopathic plasmacytic lymphadenopathy is a newly recognized subtype of idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD-IPL) and often mimics IgG4-related disease (IgG4-RD). We present two of the first cases of iMCD-IPL diagnosed in British Columbia, Canada. Both patients had normolipemic bilateral xanthelasma palpebrum, which has not previously been reported in iMCD-IPL. Case report: Both patients were Asian women in the 5th decade who presented with anemia, inflammation, polyclonal hypergammaglobulinemia (PHGG), and xanthelasmas. IgG4-RD was initially suspected, but upon review of the lymph node histology and careful clinicopathological correlation, both were found to have iMCD-IPL with plasmacytic histology. Biopsies of the xanthelasmas revealed foamy macrophages consistent with common xanthelasmas. Both patients had partial clinical and biochemical response to siltuximab, but no change in xanthelasmas. We searched the literature and identified three cases of unicentric Castleman's disease (UCD) with xanthomas, systemic inflammation and PHGG. These three patients showed marked improvement in both systemic symptoms and xanthomas after resection of the UCD. Conclusion: We report two patients with normolipemic xanthelasmas and iMCD-IPL whose xanthelasmas did not regress with siltuximab. However, the regression of xanthomas in three cases of UCD from the literature suggest a potential pathophysiological association between Castleman disease and xanthomas.

Keywords: Autoinflammation, Castleman, IgG4, Immunohematology, Polyclonal hypergammaglobulinaemia, Xanthelasmas

Received: 13 Nov 2025; Accepted: 26 Jan 2026.

Copyright: © 2026 Chen, Yin, Blanco, Crawford, Henrie, Parkin, Khalil, Carruthers, Zhang and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Luke Chen

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