Kawasaki Disease: A Clinician’s Update

Table 1

Clinical diagnosis criteria as determined by the American Heart Association and laboratory criteria that may be used to help establish the diagnosis.

American Heart Association diagnostic clinical criteria [2]

Supplementary laboratory criteria [2, 34, 36, 41, 43]

Fever persisting >5 days, plus at least four out of five of the following principal features*; (i) Changes in extremities, including indurative angioedema and desquamation; (ii) Polymorphous exanthema; (iii) Bilateral bulbar conjunctival injection without exudate; (iv) Changes to the lips and oral cavity, including pharyngeal injection, dry fissured lips, and/or strawberry tongue; (v) Acute nonpurulent cervical lymphadenopathy (>1.5 cm diameter)

(i) Albumin <3 g/dL; (ii) C-reactive protein >3 mg; (iii) Erythrocyte sedimentation rate >40 mm/h; (iv) Elevated alanine aminotransferase; (v) Leukocytosis: white cell count >15,000/mm; (vi) Normochromic, normocytic anaemia for age; (vii) Sterile pyuria: >10 white blood cell/mm^3

∗If less than four of the principal features are present but two-dimensional echocardiography detects coronary artery abnormalities, patients are diagnosed with incomplete KD [2].