Kikuchi-Fujimoto Disease Mimicking Tuberculosis

A 32-year-old woman presented with a fever and cervical lymphadenopathies. The research for Mycobacterium tuberculosis was negative. Tuberculin skin test was positive. Laboratory investigations showed an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate and a normal white blood cell count. Bacteriological and viral investigations were negative. Quantiferon-Tb Gold test was indeterminate. Thraco-abdominal and pelvic computed tomography, FDG-PET and gallium scintigraphy revealed no abnormalities. Histological study of cervical lymph node biopsy found signs in favor of histiocytic necrotizing lymphadenitis. There were no epithelioid cell granulomas. A test tuberculosis treatment was refused by the patient. The evolution was marked by spontaneous clinical and biological resolution in fifty days. The negative Lowenstein-Jensen culture eliminated formally the tuberculosis. KFD was thus the most likely diagnosis.