Citation

Okada S, Hashimoto S, Miyake A, Okada Y, Hirano R, Fukunaga S, Ishikawa Y. Front. Pediatr. 2020; 8: e6.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, Saiseikai Shimonoseki General Hospital, Yamaguchi, Japan.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, Frontiers Media)

DOI

10.3389/fped.2020.00006

PMID

32047731

PMCID

PMC6997125

Abstract

Background: Although an etiology of Kawasaki disease (KD) is unknown, an aberrant innate immune system in predisposed individuals has been proposed to play a key role in the development of KD vasculitis. Various etiological pathogens have been proposed as the trigger of KD and a scaled injury preceding symptom onset has been reported as one of them. Here, we report a 17-month-old Japanese female who was hospitalized due to high fever lasting for 4 days with infection ruled out as a cause. On admission, she displayed severe sunburn all over her body following a prolonged period of outdoor play 5 days ago. On the 5 day of illness, she developed complete KD. Serum levels of high mobility group box 1, a representative for damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), were elevated during acute phase and continued to decrease during subacute phase. This unique course suggested the inflammatory process of KD involving innate immunity via DAMPs.

Copyright © 2020 Okada, Hashimoto, Miyake, Okada, Hirano, Fukunaga and Ishikawa.

Language: en

Keywords

Kawasaki disease; damage-associated molecular patterns; innate immunity; pathogen-associated molecular patterns; scaled injury