Kimura's disease: a clinicopathologic study of 54 Chinese patients

Kimura's disease, a chronic inflammatory condition of unknown cause, is endemic in Orientals. The present study documented 54 cases of Kimura's disease in patients from mainland China. The main clinical features of this series included young and middle-aged male predominance (male:female = 3.5:1), predilection for the head and neck regions, and a long duration. The disease presented as either single (31 cases), or multiple lesions (23 cases), and mainly involved subcutaneous tissues (29 cases), major salivary glands (21 cases), and lymph nodes (17 cases) in isolation or in combination. Histopathologically, the lesion was characterized by hyperplasia of lymphoid tissue with well-developed lymphoid follicles, marked infiltration of eosinophils, proliferation of thin-walled capillary venules, and varying degrees of fibrosis. Distinctive features of salivary glands and nodal involvement were also described. Differences between Kimura's disease and angiolymphoid hyperplasia with eosinophilia, mostly reported in the West, were discussed to draw attention to their distinction.