Rickettsia-like bodies in a case of kawasaki disease

Kawasaki disease or mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome, is a recently recognized disease entity which affects infants and young children. The illness runs an acute febrile course with distinctive clinical features and in 1–2% of cases may end fatally with pathological findings similar to infantile periarteritis nodosa. Several thousand cases have been recognized in Japan, but so far the disease appears to be rare in other countries including Australia from which only 3 cases have been reported. The cause of the disease is not known, although electron microscopic findings of intracellular Rickettsia-like bodies by Japanese workers have suggested an infective agent. Similar findings in one of the previously reported Australian cases will be presented together with a brief description of the clinical and pathological features of the patient which are typical of the disease.