Fifty Years of Kawasaki Disease - A Tribute to Dr Tomisaku Kawasaki.

It has been 50 years since the legendary Japanese pediatrician, Dr Tomisaku Kawasaki, published his classic paper in 1967. Little was he to know at that time that this condition would not only be known after his name but would also become the commonest cause of acquired heart disease in children in most of the developed world. The etiology of this condition continues to remain an enigma, and the diagnosis is still based on a set of criteria that are entirely clinical. All pediatricians must be familiar with the various clinical presentations of this disease because delays in diagnosis and treatment can have disastrous consequences.