Epidemiologic aspects of Kawasaki disease in a Manhattan hospital.

Epidemiologic and clinical features of Kawasaki disease in 106 patients seen between 1980 and 1986 at The New York Hospital in midtown Manhattan were compared with those in large series from the United States, Canada, and Japan. Dissimilarities in our Kawasaki disease experience included ethnic heterogeneity of our patients (50% white, 18% black, 16% Hispanic, and 16% Oriental) and, in comparison with the Japanese experience, an older mean age (3 1/2 vs 1 1/2 years) with fewer children less than 2 years of age (32% vs 50% to 60%). In comparison with the general population of the geographic urban and suburban referral area for our hospital and in comparison with our general pediatric population, Oriental children with Kawasaki disease were overrepresented (16% vs 2%). More families of children with Kawasaki disease were members of the upper and middle class (73%) than were the population seen in general pediatrics (31.7%) at our hospital. Personal interviews with 63 families of children with Kawasaki disease and 63 control families with children paired for ethnic group, sex, and age revealed no epidemiologic differences except for use of rug shampoo within 1 month of onset in 16 episodes in 15 children with Kawasaki disease in 14 families (22% of families) compared with two families of control children (3%) (P less than .001).