What's Kawasaki disease?
Kawasaki disease is a severe acute inflammatory and febrile illness of children under five, with skin and mucous-membrane changes and lymph-node involvement, and a risk of coronary artery damage.
| Features mapped | 6 |
|---|---|
| Treatments mapped | 1 |
| Published sources | 6 |
| Last reviewed | 2026-08-04 |
Signs and symptoms
Vasculitis
Kawasaki disease is a systemic vasculitis (inflammation of blood vessels) that can damage the coronary arteries of the heart.
Cervical lymphadenopathy
Swollen neck lymph nodes (lymphadenopathy) are one of the features of Kawasaki disease.
Skin rash
Kawasaki disease produces skin and mucous-membrane changes, including rash.
Edema
Limb edema (swelling) has been reported in a person with Kawasaki disease, described alongside persistent fever, skin redness (erythema), and conjunctivitis, and without neck lymph node swelling or the typical rash.
Fever
A fever is a defining feature of Kawasaki disease, an acute febrile illness of young children.
Conjunctivitis
Conjunctivitis (eye inflammation) is among the findings used to recognize Kawasaki disease, and can appear together with cracked lips and throat redness (pharyngeal congestion).
Treatment and management
What the research describes, not a recommendation. Treatment decisions belong with your clinician.
This covers treatments that appear in the published research mapped here. Investigational and experimental therapies are not included, so their absence is a boundary of this map, not a sign they do not exist.
intravenous immunoglobulin
Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is the standard first-line treatment for acute Kawasaki disease and helps resolve the fever and inflammation.
Used to help with: Fever.
“Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) at 2 g/kg is the standard first-line therapy for acute Kawasaki disease (KD), yet a subset of patients remains febrile after…”
How to read the evidence labels
Where this comes from
This guide is built from 6 published source(s). Every claim above links back to one of them. Click any source ID to read the original on PubMed.
Take it further
Printed, source-linked documents built from this condition's graph — ready to bring to an appointment or attach to a coverage request. Every claim carries its published source, the same as this guide.