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Published on: August 28, 2018

Risk factors and performance of coronary aneurysm risk scores in children with Kawasaki disease

Cem Çanakçi1, Halil Özdemir2, Gül Arga2

  • 1Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, Ankara University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Türkiye.

Frontiers in Pediatrics
|August 7, 2026
PubMed

Insights

Kawasaki disease risk scores show limited accuracy in predicting coronary artery aneurysms in Turkish children. Key indicators like age, fever duration, and IVIG timing are crucial for assessing risk.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Cardiology
  • Rheumatology
  • Epidemiology

Background:

  • Kawasaki disease (KD) is a primary cause of acquired heart disease in children.
  • Coronary artery aneurysm (CAA) is the most severe complication of KD.
  • Existing risk scores for CAA were developed primarily in East Asian populations and may not generalize well.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To identify clinical predictors of CAA in a Turkish pediatric cohort.
  • To evaluate the performance of established risk scoring systems for predicting CAA in this population.

Main Methods:

  • Retrospective single-center study of children diagnosed with KD (1994-2019).
  • Analysis of demographic, clinical, and laboratory data.
  • CAA defined as coronary artery z-score ≥2.5.
  • Evaluation of established risk scoring systems' ability to identify patients with CAA.

Main Results:

  • CAA developed in 22.2% of 81 patients.
  • Younger age, prolonged fever, and delayed IVIG treatment were associated with CAA.
  • Commonly used risk scores exhibited low sensitivity and limited overall performance in predicting coronary involvement.

Conclusions:

  • Established KD risk scoring systems have variable diagnostic performance for CAA in Turkish children.
  • No single scoring system provided consistently balanced sensitivity and specificity.
  • Age at diagnosis, fever duration, and IVIG timing are important clinical indicators for assessing CAA risk.
Abstract

Keywords:
coronary artery abnormalitiescoronary artery aneurysmkawasaki diseasepediatricsrisk assessmentrisk factors

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