Cardiac Function in Kawasaki Disease Patients with Respiratory Symptoms

Lee, Seul Bee; Choi, Han Seul; Son, Sejung; Hong, Young Mi

The Tei index combines the systolic and diastolic functions of ventricles in an index of global myocardial performance. 14) It correlates with the severity and clinical outcome in children with cardiac disease. 14)28) The Tei index could be used as an accurate tool for estimating myocardial function in KD patients. 29) According to Ajami et al. 30) after IVIG treatment in KD patients, the Tei index changed from 0.43±0.08 to 0.35±0.06. The Tei index could be used to detect early global myocardial dysfunction when other cardiac function indexes are in the normal range. 30) There are several limitations to our study. First, diagnosis of KD was mostly dependent on clinical manifestations since not every patient had coronary artery dilatation. Also, we could not collect nasopharyngeal swab samples from all KD patients with respiratory symptoms because the respiratory virus PCR test was quite expensive. KD patients with respiratory symptoms whose parents did not agree to have their kids test for virus PCR were excluded in this study. Group 1 patients were assumed not to have concomitant viral infections. RT-PCR results for all KD patients would help identify the relationship between respiratory viruses with echocardiographic findings in KD patients.