Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute, self-limited illness of infancy and early childhood that has now replaced rheumatic fever as the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children in the United States and Japan. Although the acute illness resolves spontaneously, permanent damage to the coronary arteries occurs in 20-25% of untreated children. The cause of KD remains unknown and there is no specific laboratory test to identify affected children. Nonetheless, an effective treatment exists that significantly reduces the risk of coronary artery damage. KD thus presents a unique dilemma: the disease may be difficult to recognize, there is no diagnostic laboratory test, there is an extremely effective therapy, and there is a 25% chance of serious cardiovascular damage or death if the therapy is not administered. This project will support the continued collaboration of an unusual multidisciplinary team with expertise in documentary film making, parent advocacy, pediatric medicine, anthropology, and the history of medicine to produce a web-based archive of interviews and a television documentary to increase public awareness of KD and to support scholarly research on the origins of this emerging pediatric disease. Funds from this application will support three major interviewing sessions in Japan, Hawaii, and San Diego conducted under the auspices of the KD Foundation. (www.kdfoundation.org). The film will focus on 1) the importance of informed parents in establishing the timely diagnosis of KD, which permits effective treatment and prevention of complications and 2) the history of KD, showing that the ways in which it emerged as an internationally recognized disease mirror the ways in which it is now diagnosed or mis-diagnosed in our contemporary health care system. In the case of KD, informed parent advocacy can mean the difference between life and death for an affected child.
| Kushner, Howard I; Abramowsky, Carlos R (2010) An old autopsy report sheds light on a ""new"" disease: infantile polyarteritis nodosa and kawasaki disease. Pediatr Cardiol 31:490-6 |
| Kushner, Howard I; Macnee, Rupert P; Burns, Jane C (2009) Kawasaki disease in India: increasing awareness or increased incidence? Perspect Biol Med 52:17-29 |
| Kushner, Howard I; Bastian, John F; Turner, Christena L et al. (2008) The two emergencies of Kawasaki syndrome and the implications for the developing world. Pediatr Infect Dis J 27:377-83 |
| Kushner, Howard I; Macnee, Rupert; Burns, Jane C (2006) Impressions of Kawasaki syndrome in India. Indian Pediatr 43:939-42 |
