Prospective follow-up cardiac evaluation of children with Kawasaki disease in Northern India using the Japanese echocardiography criteria.

OBJECTIVES

There is no information available on the follow-up of children with Kawasaki disease (KD) in developing countries. This prospective study was undertaken to evaluate the cardiac abnormalities in a cohort of children with KD from a tertiary care centre in Northern India.

METHODS

Twenty children with diagnoses of KD and followed-up for at least 3 months in the Pediatric Rheumatology and Immunology Clinic of the Advanced Pediatric Centre, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh were evaluated between July 2002 to January 2006. Age of onset of disease ranged from 12 months to 10 years. The male: female ratio was 4:1. All patients had received intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) administration in the acute stage. Chest radiography showed no abnormalities in the 15 patients in whom it was done. Electrocardiographic abnormalities were seen in 3 patients in the form of T wave inversion in 3, ST segment changes in 2, and prolonged PR interval in 1 patient which normalized on follow-up. The mean time interval between the diagnosis of KD and first follow-up echocardiography was 7.9 +/- 3.5 months (range 4.4-11.4 months), which was repeated at 1 year and 2 years follow-up in patients who had abnormal findings. When we analyzed coronary artery diameters using Japanese Ministry of Health criteria, none of our patients could qualify for a diagnosis of coronary aneurysm. However, 3 had coronary artery diameters more than + 2 SD when the body surface area adjusted coronary dimensions were used.

RESULTS

One of our patients also had increased left ventricular dimensions but also had normal ejection fraction and shortening fraction, and there were no regional wall motion abnormalities. Mitral valve was thickened in 2 patients and trivial mitral regurgitation was noticed in 1 patient. Repeat echocardiography done 1 year and 2 years later on follow-up, showed persistence of thickening of the mitral valve leaflet in one of these but there was no regurgitation. None of our patients had evidence of cardiac failure, arrhythmia or myocardial infarction. There was no mortality in this series. Thallium scans were carried out during follow-up on 14 patients in this cohort and 2 patients showed perfusion defects in anterior wall, septum and posterior wall of lateral ventricle.

CONCLUSIONS

We conclude that significant myocardial dysfunction and coronary artery changes due to KD were uncommon in our cohort. We speculate that this can be attributed to the IVIG given to the patients during the acute phase of the illness. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on detailed cardiac follow-up of children with KD from a developing country.