Role of the Egami score to predict immunoglobulin resistance in Kawasaki disease among a Western Mediterranean population

Kawasaki disease is an acute self-limited systemic vasculitis common in childhood. Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is an effective treatment, and it reduces the incidence of cardiac complications. Egami score has been validated to identify IVIG non-responder patients in Japanese population, and it has shown high sensitivity and specificity to identify these non-responder patients. Although its effectiveness in Japan, Egami score has shown to be ineffective in non-Japanese populations. The aim of this study was to apply the Egami score in a Western Mediterranean population in Catalonia (Spain). Observational population-based study that includes patients from all Pediatric Units in 33 Catalan hospitals, both public and private management, between January 2004 and March 2014. Sensitivity and specificity for the Egami score was calculated, and a logistic regression analysis of predictors of overall response to IVIG was also developed. Predicting IVIG resistance with a cutoff for Egami score ≥3 obtained 26 % sensitivity and 82 % specificity. Negative predictive value was 85 % and positive predictive value 22 %. This low sensitivity implies that three out of four non-responders will not be identified by the Egami score. Besides, logistic regression models did not found significance for the use of the Egami score to predict IVIG resistance in Catalan population although having an area under the ROC curve of 0.618 (IC 95 % 0.538–0.698, p < 0.001). Although regression models found an area under the ROC curve >0.5 to predict IVIG resistance, the low sensitivity excludes the Egami score as a useful tool to predict IVIG resistance in Catalan population.