mjl1717
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Anyone know the etiology of Kawasaki disease??
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| DrPak
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| huyniid
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Background: In 1967, Tomisaku Kawasaki first described Kawasaki disease (KD) as a unique illness characterized by fever, rash, conjunctival injection, cervical lymphadenitis, inflammation of the lips and oral cavity, and erythema and edema of the hands and feet. KD is a generalized vasculitis of unknown etiology that has also been called mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome and infantile periarteritis nodosa. In developed countries, KD has replaced acute rheumatic fever as the most common cause of acquired heart disease in children.
Pathophysiology: The vasculitis is most severe in medium-sized arteries but can also occur in veins, capillaries, small arterioles, and larger arteries.
In severely affected vessels, the media develops inflammation with necrosis of smooth muscle cells. Splitting of the internal and external elastic laminae can occur, which leads to aneurysms. Four to 8 weeks after the onset of symptoms, inflammatory changes are less apparent and fibrous connective tissue begins to form within the vessel wall. The intima proliferates and thickens. The vessel wall eventually becomes narrowed or occluded by stenosis or a thrombus. Cardiovascular death usually occurs from a myocardial infarction secondary to thrombosis of a coronary aneurysm or from rupture of a large coronary aneurysm.
The vasculitis also affects other medium-sized vessels, including the renal, paraovarian, paratesticular, mesenteric, pancreatic, iliac, hepatic, splenic, and axillary arteries, resulting in systemic aneurysms.
http://www.emedicine.com/MED/topic1223.htm
autoimmune --> vasculitis
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| mjl1717
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thank you, so if asked on rounds a good lead in statement:
"its a suspected autoimmune vasculitis that affects medium size arteries".
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