Early use of immunoglobulin and risk of coronary abnormalities in patients with Kawasaki's disease

Kawasaki’s disease is a systemic vasculitis of the mediumsized blood vessels, primarily affecting the coronary arteries, causing coronary dilation and aneurysms in 15 - 25% of untreated children. Use of Intravenous immunoglobulin within the first 10 days of illness is the recommended treatment, redugin the risk of coronary artery aneurysm develo-pment from 20% to 4%. Objective: To determine the association of early treatment to risk of echocardiographic coronary changes on patients with the disease. Methods and Results: A review of the institutional Pediatric Cardiology Database, allowed the identification of 66 patients who had Kawasaki’s disease between 1994 and 2014. The echocardiographic findings at follow up were related to the time of treatment initiation in relation to the beginning of the disease. Treatment with im-munoglobulin within 10 days was associated to coronary artery aneurysms in 5.8% of patients, as opposed to 50% in those with a delayed initiation of therapy. Conclusión: Early treatment with immunoglobulins (within 10 days of illness) significantly reduces the short term risk of developing coronary aneurysms in patients with Kawasaki’s disease.