A narrative of a cohort of patients with Kawasaki disease seen at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

: Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute febrile illness affecting young children. It was first described by Tomisaku Kawasaki in Japan (1961). Also referred to as mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome because of its involvement of lymph nodes, skin, the nasal, oral and pharyngeal mucous membranes. It is characterized by prolonged fever, exanthema and a tendency to develop coronary arterial lesions leading to aneurysms and thromboembolism, a vasculitis syndrome which can lead to mortality from coronary artery aneurysm (CAA) in a small percentage of patients. The cause is unknown. Although, there is the possibility that it might be related to an infectious disease which triggers abnormalities of the immune system. There has been no evidence of the disease transmission from one person to the other. A possible role of environmental factors like toxins, dust mite has been considered as triggering factors, but not proven. It is a rare disease that mainly affects children aged less than five years old. The cases discussed were of good prognosis, in spite of the presence of aneurysmal dilatation in one of the children. Also, the possibility of missed diagnosis is very common with Kawasaki’s disease because of poor awareness of the disease among health care practitioners and its resemblance to other childhood illnesses such as measles which are commoner and are vaccine preventable. These cases are reported to increase the awareness of its existence in our environment and hence, increase the index of suspicion and prompt diagnosis that will reduce morbidity and mortality in affected children.