How would you feel if your child was ill and the doctors were unsure of the correct diagnosis or path of treatment? Unfortunately, this happens to many families in the United States and across the world, when a child becomes infected with Kawasaki disease. “In the United States and other Western countries, Kawasaki disease occurs in approximately 1 in 10,000 children under 5 each year,” (Genetics). If I were a parent, and my child was suffering while doctors sat around scratching their heads waiting for more symptoms to appear, I would be deeply frustrated. Sadly, exactly that occurs in the process of diagnosing a rare childhood illness known as Kawasaki disease. Kawasaki disease is a rare and serious childhood illness that causes “the walls …show more content…
In order to accurately diagnose Kawasaki disease, doctors must use a process of elimination after ruling out similar childhood diseases, such as “Rocky Mountain spotted fever, scarlet fever, and juvenile arthritis,” (-NHLBI). Another problem facing the process of diagnosing is that, “Kawasaki disease cannot be diagnosed by a single test or groups of tests. Doctors make the diagnosis after carefully examining the child, observing the signs and symptoms, and elimination the possibility of other, similar disease,” (American Heart Association). This means that doctors are back at stage one when attempting to diagnose Kawasaki disease, and the absence of a test once again makes the diagnosing process difficult. However, once doctors have ruled out all of the possibilities and diagnosed the sick child with Kawasaki disease, “he or she [the doctor] will likely recommend [an] electrocardiography. Echo also can help show the disease's effects over time,” (-NHLBI). Although the echo cannot be used to diagnose Kawasaki disease, it reinforce a doctor's suspicion of Kawasaki disease. However, as the quote stated, the effect of this disease on the child's blood vessels can be observed over time, not immediately. This forces the diagnosis process to take even