[Acute renal insufficiency in Kawasaki disease]

Kawasaki disease is an acute inflammatory condition characterized by various combinations of features but renal involvement is rare. This report is of a case of Kawasaki disease complicated by acute kidney failure.

A 10 year-old girl was admitted because of acute renal failure with fever. She developed a high fever, and her general condition was poor; she had developed a macular erythematous rash 10 days earlier for which she was given cefadroxil. At admission, she remained febrile and had strawberry tongue, pharyngitis, dry erythematous lips, bilateral conjunctivitis, cervical lymphadenopathy and desquamation of the skin on her hands. She was anemic (hemoglobin = 9.6 g%), leukocytotic (33,100/mm3), but with no burr, fragmented red blood cells or thrombocytopenia. Her plasma C-reactive protein level was 236 mg/l; her blood urea was 9.5 mmol/l, her creatininemia 288 mumol/l and proteinuria was 0.5 g/l without hematuria. Urine cultures did not grow. Her blood transaminase and gammaglutamyltransferase activities were elevated. Ultrasonography of kidneys and coronary arteries was normal. Kidney biopsy performed one day after admission showed no vascular or glomerular changes, but renal tubular necrosis, indicating urinary excretion of pigments. Tests for myoglobinemia, myoglobinuria and blood muscle enzyme activities were all positive. The renal failure disappeared within 10 days but the fever and inflammatory manifestations persisted for 1 1/2-2 months despite two treatments of intravenous gammaglobulins and continuous salicylate administration. The patient developed arthralgias at the end of the first month of disease, but recovered without renal or vascular complications.

Several cases of renal involvement have been reported during the course of Kawasaki disease. They have been rarely documented by histological examination so that the vascular origin of changes has not been demonstrated. Myoglobinuria, as seen in muscular crush injury, and in our case possibly due to malignant hyperthermia, may be responsible for the transient acute renal failure.