A comparative study of Kimura's disease and IgG4-related disease: similarities, differences and overlapping features

To compare the fibroinflammatory diseases Kimura's disease (KD) and immunoglobulin (Ig)G4-related disease (IgG4RD) and to explore their possible relationship.

Forty-six cases of KD and 29 IgG4RD from our institution diagnosed from 2011 to 2020 were studied. They were compared with each other on clinical, pathological and immunohistological features. There were similar clinical features, except that IgG4RD affected an older patient population, with more frequent salivary gland involvement and KD affected head and neck lymph nodes, and showed blood eosinophilia more frequently than IgG4RD. IgG4RD exhibited frequent storiform fibrosis and obliterative phlebitis, while KD showed more frequent tissue eosinophilia, eosinophilic abscess, germinal centre eosinophilic deposit and vascularisation. Twenty to 30% of KD had more than 50 IgG4⁺ plasma cells (PC) per high-power field (HPF) and IgG4/IgG⁺ PC ratio exceeding 40%. These parameters, however, occurred in 100% of IgG4RD. Significantly more KD had >10 IgE⁺ PC/HPF and lymphoid germinal centre IgE reticular staining compared to IgG4RD. All these histological and immunohistological features are overlapping in the two diseases, although they differed with statistical significance.

Our study confirmed that there is significant overlap in clinical, pathological and immunohistological features between KD and IgG4RD. It is important to recognise these overlapping features, and correlation with a clinicopathological picture is required in differential diagnoses. The overlapping features also suggest a possible close relationship between KD and IgG4RD, which could represent different facets of a continuous fibroinflammatory disease spectrum.