Natural history and treatment outcome of radiotherapy for Kimura's disease.

BACKGROUND

Kimura's disease is a rare inflammatory disease that usually appears in head and neck region. We reported natural history of the disease and treatment outcome of radiotherapy (RT) in Chiang Mai University Hospital.

METHODS

A retrospective review was performed for all Kimura's disease patients treated with radiotherapy at our center between 2002 and 2017.

RESULTS

A total of 20 patients with Kimura's disease were reviewed. There were 14 men and 6 women. All patients presented with the mass in head and neck region. Eleven patients were treated with a definitive intent with RT, 9 patients were treated with RT after recurrence from other modalities. All patients were treated with local external beam RT with 2 Gy per fraction to a median total dose of 30 Gy (range 30-40). The median follow-up time was 4 years (range 1-16.5 years). One patient died from HIV opportunistic infection after 1.5 year of radiation with complete response of Kimura's disease. Most of the patients responded to radiotherapy and controlled the disease at the time of analysis. Two patients had multiple recurrences at new areas outside radiotherapy field. Skin toxicity grade 1 was the most common late side effect which was found in 8 (44%) patients. We did not find severe late toxicity or second malignancy in this patient cohort.

CONCLUSION

: Good local control of Kimura's disease can be achieved, with a radiation dose of 30-40 Gy, with insignificant late toxicities. We suggest that radiotherapy should be one of the treatments of choice for Kimura's disease both in primary or recurrence setting.