Castleman Disease in China: State-of-the-art Technology Before the Era of IL-6 Targeted Therapy

Castleman disease (CD) is a group of rare and heterogenous hematological diseases included in the 'Rare disease catalogue' of China. Among the different clinical subtypes of CD, idiopathic multicentric Castleman disease (iMCD) is characterized by symptomatic inflammatory symptoms with poor prognosis. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) targeted therapy (eg. siltuximab) is now considered as the most important treatment option according to international and domestic treatment guidelines and consensus. On July 2022, siltuximab became available in Chinese market, heralding the era of IL-6 targeted therapy in China. Thus, it is a good time point to review the state-of-the-art technology in the field of diagnosis and treatment of CD. We also highlight some of the clinical investigations conducted by Chinese researchers.