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Spotlight on Clinical Response

Cutaneous castleman's disease responds to anti–interleukin-6 treatment

¹ Phase I Program, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center; ² University of Houston Health Center, University of Houston; ³ Department of Dermatology, University of Texas-Houston Medical School; ⁴ Department of Dermatology and ⁵ Departments of Dermatology, Microbiology/Molecular Genetics, and Internal Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; ⁶ Department of Dermatology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas; ⁷ St. Joseph Dermpath, Bellaire, Texas; and ⁸ Clinical Hematology and Oncology, Centocor R&D, Inc., Horsham, Pennsylvania

Requests for reprints: Razelle Kurzrock, Phase I Program, Division of Cancer Medicine, University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Box 422, Houston, TX 77030. Phone: 713-794-1226; Fax: 713-563-0566. E-mail: rkurzroc{at}mdanderson.org

Abstract

Castleman's disease is uncommon, and cutaneous involvement is even rarer. We report a 42-year-old Asian woman with the multicentric plasma cell variant of Castleman's disease limited to her skin. The literature suggests that Castleman's disease is driven by interleukin-6 (IL-6). Based on these data, we hypothesized that suppression of IL-6 would have a salutary effect. Therefore, our patient was treated with CNTO328, a chimeric murine anti-human IL-6 antibody. She has shown a remarkable, ongoing response to this treatment, with almost complete clearing of her skin lesions after six doses. [Mol Cancer Ther 2007;6(9):2386–90]

Grant support: Centocor R&D, Inc.

The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

Received 4/ 6/07; revised 6/29/07; accepted 8/ 2/07.