title: Association of Kawasaki disease with tropospheric wind patterns.
abstract: The causal agent of Kawasaki disease (KD) remains unknown after more than 40 years of intensive research. The number of cases continues to rise in many parts of the world and KD is the most common cause of acquired heart disease in childhood in developed countries. Analyses of the three major KD epidemics in Japan, major non-epidemic interannual fluctuations of KD cases in Japan and San Diego, and the seasonal variation of KD in Japan, Hawaii, and San Diego, reveals a consistent pattern wherein KD cases are often linked to large-scale wind currents originating in central Asia and traversing the north Pacific. Results suggest that the environmental trigger for KD could be wind-borne. Efforts to isolate the causative agent of KD should focus on the microbiology of aerosols.
authors.affiliation: Institut Català de Ciències del Clima (IC3), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain; Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. xavier.rodo@ic3.cat
authors.forename: Xavier
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Rodó
authors.forename: Joan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ballester
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Cayan
authors.forename: Marian E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Melish
authors.forename: Yoshikazu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Ritei
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Uehara
authors.forename: Jane C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Burns
mesh_terms: D002140:California / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D058872:Epidemics; D006254:Hawaii / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D009080:Mucocutaneous Lymph Node Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D012621:Seasons; D014919:Wind