Background: Kawasaki disease is an acute systemic vasculitis which mainly involves medium caliber arteries and has become the first cause of acquired heart disease in children. Its frequency is greater in children < 5 years. There is no known etiologic agent. It has not been described previously in Guatemala.
Objective: Determine the clinical presentation, diagnosis, treatment, and results of the charts of children from 0 to 12 years of age diagnosed with Kawasaki disease. Design: Descriptive, cross-sectional study, realized in private hospitals in Guatemala City. Results: During the period of January 2003 and December 2013, 26 cases of Kawasaki disease where identified in the study group. All cases except 1 were in children under 5 years of age. All patients had a history of fever even though only 11 presented fever upon entering the hospital. More than 75% of patients had rash, red eyes without discharge, changes in oropharynx and changes in extremities. All patients received immunoglobulin and aspirin in their treatment. 7 received steroids. 15 were Complete Kawasaki, 7 Incomplete Kawasaki, and 4 were diagnosed with Kawasaki disease but not according to guidelines. Limitations: Deficiency in the medical and paramedical teams to fill out correctly a medical chart. Difficulty in gathering data from archives, especially from old files. Conclusions: The description of the disease resembles that in the literature and it is present in the population of the country. The disease was diagnosed and treated correctly.