Kawasaki disease before kawasaki at Tokyo university hospital.
OBJECTIVE
Kawasaki disease (KD) was first reported by Tomisaku Kawasaki in 1967 in Japan. Large-scale nationwide epidemiologic surveys have been conducted continuously by the Japan Kawasaki Disease Research Committee; however, there were very few reports of KD before 1967. This study was performed to clarify when KD appeared in Japan.


METHODS
We investigated the medical charts of patients who had been hospitalized at Tokyo University Hospital between 1940 and 1965.


RESULTS
We identified 10 patients whose clinical signs fulfilled the criteria for KD. The ages of the patients ranged from 8 months to 5 years, and their final diagnoses were Stevens-Johnson syndrome, allergic toxic erythema, Izumi fever, scarlet fever, and cervical lymphadenitis. These 10 patients presented between 1950 and 1964, and no confirmed cases were seen between 1940 and 1949.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggested that KD patients were rare before 1950 in Japan.
Shibuya
Noriko
N
Department of Pediatrics, Sanno Hospital, Tokyo, Japan. nshibuya@iuhw.ac.jp
Shibuya
Kazuhiko
K
Kato
Hitoshi
H
Yanagisawa
Masayoshi
M
D001528:Behcet Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D003875:Drug Eruptions / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008199:Lymphadenitis / Q000175:diagnosis; D008297:Male; D009080:Mucocutaneous Lymph Node Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012541:Scarlet Fever / Q000175:diagnosis; D013262:Stevens-Johnson Syndrome / Q000175:diagnosis; D014895:Weil Disease / Q000175:diagnosis