A case report of Kimura's disease in the parotid region

ABSTRACT

Kimura's disease is a chronic inflammatory disorder presenting regional lymphadenopathy with painless soft tissue mass. Clinically, peripheral eosinophilia and elevated serum IgE levels are observed, and proteinuria associated with renal disease can also be present. Although its etiology is not clearly understood, it occurs predominantly in young Asian males and presents as a deep, subcutaneous mass involving salivary glands of the preauricular and submandibular regions. Spontaneous remission is very rare, and although treatments such as steroid, cytotoxic therapy and irradiation are available, chronic recurrence is very common. As such, surgical excision is regarded as the mainstay of therapy for localized lesions. Histopathologically, Kimura's disease features eosinophilic abscsesses and dense lymphoid aggregates with germinal center. Clinical differential diagnosis of Kimura's disease from other parotid diseases with accompanying lymphadenopathy is often very challenging prior to biopsy. The authors report a case of a 19-year-old male diagnosed with Kimura's disease in the parotid region who underwent surgical excision and was followed up for 6 years, along with a review of related literature.