Abstract 125: Steroid Treatment in the Acute Phase of Kawasaki Disease in Mexican Children. Are they Useful?

Background: Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) and aspirin is the standard initial therapy in the treatment of Kawasaki disease (KD), which is proven to decrease the incidence of coronary artery aneurysms from 25% to less than 5%. There is increasing evidence for steroid therapy as adjunctive primary therapy with IVIG especially in those patients who are at increased risk of coronary artery aneurysms and in patients with risk of IVIG resistance. However, clinical trials evaluating the use of corticosteroids plus IVIG have produced confusing results. Objective: To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of steroids plus intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) combination therapy (IVIG+S) for the initial treatment of patients with KD to prevent coronary artery aneurysms (CAA) compared with the standard treatment with intravenous immunoglobulin plus aspirin (IVIG+A) in a Children’s Hospital in Mexico City. Material and Methods: An observational, comparative, retrospective and case-control study of all patients treated with IVIG for KD in our Institution from August 1995 to May 2014. The clinical presentation, laboratory results and coronary artery abnormalities in the IVIG+S and the IVIG+A groups were analyzed and compared. Results: We studied 295 patients with KD treated with IVIG, 136 (46.1%) received IVIG+A treatment and 159 (53.9%) received IVIG+S treatment. We didn’t found adverse reactions in the patients treated with steroids. The IVIG+S group were older 43.25 ± 43.04 than the non-steroid group 32.07 ± 24.51 (p < 0.008). Steroids were commonly use in incomplete cases (p < 0.059) and in patients with cardiac complications at diagnosis: pericardial effusion (p < 0.056) and pericarditis (p < 0.013). The steroid group has slightly more days of fever after the IVIG treatment 1.27 ± 1.51 days vs. 0.93 ± 0.924 days (p < 0.028). We found no difference in the development of CAA in both groups. (p = 0.221) Conclusions: There were no differences in the development of CAA with the use of steroids in the initial treatment of KD. Nevertheless steroids were used more commonly in incomplete forms of KD and in more severely affected patients, which could reflect the lack of difference in the development of CAA in both groups.