The etiology of Kawasaki disease: does intense release of pollen induce pollinosis in constitutionally allergic adults, while constitutionally allergic infants develop Kawasaki disease?

Kawasaki disease (KD, muco-cutaneous lymph node syndrome, MCLS) is an acute, febrile disease of nursing infants that Tomisaku Kawasaki first reported in Japan in 1962. There are about 190,000 patients in Japan. On the etiology of KD, it is still a disease of unknown origin, even more than 40 years have passed since Kawasaki’s first finding. Nationwide surveys on KD, which have been done in Japan from 1970, revealed that there were three times greater, large-scale occurrences of KD in 1979–1986. This information provided AA with a clue for the elucidation of the etiology of KD. Yozo Saito made the first report about allergic rhinitis/conjunctivitis (pollinosis) caused by Japanese cedar pollen in 1963. Thus, these two diseases were found almost during the same period of time in Japan. The numbers of pollen releases of Japanese cedar pollen and other pollens have also been observed at the sites of the various regions in Japan for each season, in every year from as early as 1965. After drawing graphs of these data on the level of pollen releases of eight sites, we compared those with a graph of the annual numbers of occurrence of KD patients; we found a correlation between the peaks of pollen release not observed before then and the peaks of KD occurrences. Therefore, we think that this evidence suggests a likely strong link between the occurrence of KD and pollen releases, which may provide a basis for solving the etiology of KD.