Kikuchi fujimoto disease – necrotising cervical lymphadenitis

Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease is a rare benign self-limited disease of unclear etiology. It is important to recognize and diagnose this entity as it closely mimics and is often mistakenly clinically diagnosed as lymphoma.

We report a case of young male of 24 years age with fever and tender cervical lymphadenopathy. FNAC suggested a diagnosis of reactive lymphadenitis and patient put on broad spectrum antibiotics. As the patient showed no response the biopsy of the cervical lymph node was done and microscopy suggested the diagnosis of Kikuchi disease.

Kikuchi Fujimoto disease is a rare self-limited disease, more common in females. Our case is again a rare case of Kikuchi's disease reported in a male patient. Clinician and pathologist should be aware of this entity and keeping it as a close differential diagnosis in appropriate cases will minimize the unnecessary treatment and its side effect.