Kawasaki disease

Kawasaki disease is the second most common vasculitis in childhood (the most common being IgA vasculitis).

Presents with an acute self-limiting febrile illness usually in young children, and is the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children aged under 5 years in the developed world.

Classic features include fever, rash, conjunctivitis, lymphadenopathy, changes to the lips or oral mucosal, and peripheries, with initial swelling and erythema followed by desquamation in the second week.

The most serious sequelae is coronary artery aneurysm, affecting 20% to 25% of untreated patients and 19% of treated patients in the UK, with even higher coronary artery aneurysm complication rates in those aged under 1 year.

Current standard treatment includes intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), alongside aspirin. There remains clinical equipoise if up-front corticosteroids reduce coronary artery aneurysms in unselected cases, but they are usually added for high-risk cases as well as patients with Kawasaki shock syndrome.

In IVIG-resistant cases, other medications which may be of benefit include high-dose pulsed intravenous methylprednisolone, tumour necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha inhibitors (e.g., infliximab), interleukin (IL)-1 inhibitors, (e.g., anakinra), or ciclosporin.

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute, febrile, self-limiting, systemic vasculitis, the exact aetiology of which is not fully understood that almost exclusively affects young children. In an immunogenetically pre-disposed host, an environmental trigger, including infectious agents, results in an aberrant inflammatory host response leading to the clinical manifestations. Clinically, it is characterised by fever, polymorphic rash, conjunctivitis, mucosal erythema with strawberry tongue, erythema and swelling of the hands and feet, and unilateral cervical lymphadenopathy. The most serious complication is the development of coronary artery aneurysms, which account for significant morbidity and mortality and affect 20% to 25% of untreated patients. KD is the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children aged under 5 years in the US and other developed countries.