Blinded case-control study of the relationship between human coronavirus NL63 and Kawasaki syndrome

We conducted a blinded, case-control, retrospective study in pediatric patients hospitalized at The Children's Hospital, Denver, Colorado, to determine whether human coronavirus (HCoV)-NL63 infection is associated with Kawasaki syndrome (KS). Over the course of a 7-month period, nasopharyngeal-wash samples from 2 (7.7%) of 26 consecutive children with KS and 4 (7.7%) of 52 matched control subjects tested positive for HCoV-NL63 by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. These data suggest that, although HCoV-NL63 was circulating in children in our community during the time of the study, the prevalence of infection with HCoV-NL63 was not greater in patients with KS than in control subjects.