To determine whether previous infectious and allergic diseases are associated with the development of Kawasaki disease (KD) in children.
This nationwide, population-based, case-control study used data from the Korean National Health Insurance claims database. The entire cohort consisted of patients under five years of age diagnosed with KD and 1:5 propensity score-matched controls from 2013 to 2019. The epidemiologic features and previous infectious or allergic diseases between the two groups were compared, and potential factors that could influence the association were identified.
In total, 32,964 patients diagnosed with KD and 164,820 controls were included. Patients with KD had more frequent diagnoses of previous sepsis or bacteremia (odds ratio [OR] 1.41), acute pyelonephritis (OR 1.10), and otitis media (OR 1.24). In addition, KD was associated with previous diagnoses of atopic dermatitis (OR 1.05), urticaria (OR 1.08), and asthma (OR 1.05). The association between previous infectious or allergic diagnoses and KD was more prominent in younger patients (< two years). However, intravenous immunoglobulin resistance, sex, and region of residence were not significant factors that consistently influenced the association between previous infectious or allergic diseases and KD.
Despite the increased rates of previous infectious and allergic diseases in patients with KD compared with controls, the association between allergic diseases and KD was weaker in our cohort than in previous studies.
Copyright © 2022. Published by Elsevier Inc.

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