Positive serology for dengue viral infection in pediatric patients with Kawasaki disease in southern Thailand.

BACKGROUND: The etiologic agent of Kawasaki disease (KD) is unknown, but may be dengue infection because of reported cases of concomitant KD and dengue. METHODS AND RESULTS: Prospective study was conducted to ascertain the relationship of positive serology for dengue infection in pediatric patients presenting with KD. A total of 65 cases were diagnosed with KD during the period of 4 years and of the 48 who had a complete dengue serologic study, 9 had a positive dengue titer. CONCLUSION: In the present study 18.7% of patients had proven dengue infection from a positive serologic study. Further case-control study with other pediatric patients presenting with acute febrile illness needs to be done to support this significant finding.