Kawasaki syndrome hospitalizations in the United States, 1997 and 2000.

OBJECTIVE

To estimate the incidence and describe the epidemiologic characteristics of Kawasaki syndrome (KS) among children in the United States.

METHODS

Hospital discharge records with a KS diagnosis among patients <18 years of age were obtained from the 1997 and 2000 Kids' Inpatient Database and weighted to estimate the number and rate of KS-associated hospitalizations for the United States.

RESULTS

In 2000, approximately 4248 hospitalizations associated with KS occurred in the United States, and the median age of patients at admission was 2 years. Children <5 years of age accounted for 3277 of these KS hospitalizations (77%) and had a KS hospitalization rate of 17.1 per 100,000 children. This rate was similar to the 1997 rate of 17.6 per 100,000 children. The KS hospitalization rate was significantly higher for infants <1 year of age than for children 1 to 4 years of age (19.8 and 16.4 per 100,000 children, respectively). The rate of KS hospitalizations among children aged <5 years was highest among Asian and Pacific Islander children and was followed by the rate for black children (39.0 and 19.7 per 100,000 children, respectively). No deaths associated with KS were reported among hospitalized children. The median charge for a KS hospitalization was 7779 dollars (mean 10,725 dollars) and the total annual charges for KS hospitalizations in 2000 were approximately 35 million dollars among children <5 years of age.

CONCLUSIONS

Among children <5 years of age, the annual KS-associated hospitalization rates were similar for 1997 and 2000. The epidemiologic characteristics and hospitalization rates for KS at a national level were consistent with those reported from earlier studies, suggesting that the incidence for KS has not markedly changed in the United States during the past decade.