The need for long-term follow-up in Kawasaki disease is poorly recognized although cardiac sudden death attacks asymptomatic young people with past illness after a long latent period. Therefore, in order to prevent cardiac disasters, high risk groups should be identified and the prevalence rate of the disease should be determined for crisis management. A total of 9,965 consecutive freshmen at t...

BACKGROUND A number of studies have indicated regional differences in semen quality. To examine the current status in Japan, we undertook a cross-sectional study on the semen quality of fertile Japanese men for comparison with recent European results. METHODS Semen parameters of 324 fertile men from the Kawasaki/Yokohama area were investigated. The semen parameters were compared with those pu...

Kawasaki disease is the most common cause of vasculitis affecting children, and the leading cause of acquired heart disease in the developed world. To date, studies on the role of IFN-gamma in the pathogenesis of Kawasaki disease have focused on peripheral production of IFN-gamma, and have yielded conflicting results. Affected heart tissue is not available from children with Kawasaki disease. I...

Kawasaki disease is the leading cause of acquired heart disease among children in most industrialized countries; however, only few descriptive studies have discussed the pros and cons of early immunoglobulin therapy. This study aimed to see the effect of early immunoglobulin therapy on Kawasaki disease outcomes. Patients who received immunoglobulin therapy for the first time were enrolled. Basi...

T wenty-two years have passed since the original description by Tomisaku Kawasaki of the syndrome that now bears his name.' The syndrome is now known to occur throughout the world. The true annual incidence in the United States is unknown, but overall incidence is estimated to be 4.5-9.5 per 100,000 children under 5 years of age in nonepidemic years, whereas during epidemics, the incidence incr...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this article is to make an evaluation on the clinical features of patients with Kawasaki disease who require a cardiac surgical procedure including coronary artery bypass grafting, coronary arterial aneurysmorrhaphy or heart transplantation. METHODS English literature of Kawasaki disease for cardiac surgery (1990-2011) was retrieved in the Pubmed database. The clinical f...

BACKGROUND In patients with Kawasaki disease, serial evaluation of the distribution and size of coronary artery aneurysms (CAA) is necessary for risk stratification and therapeutic management. Although transthoracic echocardiography is often sufficient for this purpose initially, visualization of the coronary arteries becomes progressively more difficult as children grow. We sought to prospecti...