Kikuchi's disease: a benign cause of fever and cervical lymphadenopathy.

Histiocytic necrotizing lymphadenitis (Kikuchi's disease, KD) is a rare benign condition of unknown origin, usually characterized by lymphadenopathy and fever, affecting mainly young women. We describe three cases of patients, one man and two women, with biopsy-proven KD detected at our university hospital during the past 3 years and we review the literature.