• Ho-Chang Kuo, Wei-Chiao Chang, Kuender D Yang, Hong-Ren Yu, Chih-Lu Wang, Shu-Chen Ho, and Chun-Yuh Yang.
• Department of Pediatrics, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
• Bmc Pediatr. 2013 Mar 23; 13: 38.

BackgroundThe risk of allergic diseases among Kawasaki disease (KD) patients relative to the general population is not known. The aim of this study was to perform a population-based cohort study to investigate the risk of allergic diseases among children after KD in Taiwan- a country with the third highest incidence of KD in the world.MethodsData were obtained from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. In total, 253 patients who were 5 years of age or younger and had a first-time hospitalization with a diagnosis of KD between 1997 and 2005 were included as the study cohort and 1,012 non-KD patients matched for age and sex were included as comparison cohort. Multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression model was used to adjust for confounding and to compare the 6-year allergic-free survival rate between these two cohorts.ResultsThe incidence rate of allergic diseases (184.66 per 1000 person-year) was significantly higher in the KD cohort than in the control cohort (124.99 per 1000 person-years). After adjusting for potential confounders, the adjusted hazard ratios of asthma and allergic rhinitis were 1.51 (95% confidence interval = 1.17-1.95) and 1.30 (95% confidence interval = 1.04-1.62), respectively.ConclusionWe conclude that KD patients were at an increased risk for allergic diseases compared with the comparison cohort.

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