Fevers lasting five or more days in infants and children could be a symptom of Kawasaki disease, a Taipei-based physician said on Thursday.
Pan Chun-shen (潘俊伸), deputy chief physician at Reshining Clinic, said the condition — also known as Kawasaki syndrome — is an acute inflammatory disease that affects blood vessels.
Pan said that a six-year-old girl surnamed Chen (陳) came to the clinic with tongue lesions, redness in her cheeks and a fever that had lasted four days.
Photo courtesy of Reshining Clinic via CNA
She was diagnosed with atypical Kawasaki disease after doctors performed an ultrasound scan of her heart.
The girl might have died had her parents waited longer to seek medical attention, Pan said.
Kawasaki disease mainly affects children younger than five years old and especially those younger than two, he said.
Atypical Kawasaki disease, which affects just 15 percent of those with the condition, is difficult to diagnose and could result in potentially fatal coronary inflammation, he said.
The diagnostic criteria for the disease are fever; cracked lips; swollen and bumpy tongue; redness in the oral cavity or throat; dry inflammation inside the eyelids; changes in the extremities including reddened, swollen or peeling skin; and affected lymph nodes in the neck, he said.
People with atypical Kawasaki disease have a fever in addition to up to three other symptoms, which makes the disease hard to detect, he said, adding that it often resembles common viral infections.
Correct diagnosis of atypical Kawasaki disease often requires a battery of tests before the person can be treated with intravenous infusions of antibodies, he said.
Atypical Kawasaki disease could progress to cause coronary inflammation and aneurysms that could be fatal and are linked to worse health outcomes later in life, he said, adding that infusions reduce the risks from 25 to 5 percent.
Fevers can occur in infants and children for a variety of reasons, but parents should be alert to extended fevers that are accompanied with redness or swelling on the skin, he said.
Children with Kawasaki disease should be brought to a hospital for follow-ups, and the breaking of the fever does not necessarily mean they have recovered, he said.
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