Background: Kimura's disease is a rare inflammatory disease that mainly affects Asians and most often occurs in the deep lymph nodes of the head and neck. We report on a rare case of Kimura's disease in the hard palate of a white man.
Method: A 56-year-old white man was seen with a rapidly growing mass in the upper jaw. A complete tumor resection with hemimaxillectomy was performed. The tumor, which showed signs of inflammation, was located within the bone and the soft tissue.
Results: Kimura's disease was diagnosed by histopathologic examination of the resected tumor.
Conclusion: This case demonstrates that Kimura's disease, though rare, is not limited to the Asian population. We present a case of a tumor in a white man. This adds another possibility for uncertain differential diagnoses of rapidly growing tumor masses.
© 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.