Effect of Heat-clearing and Blood-activating Herbs on Platelet Parameters in Children with Kawasaki Disease

Objective To explore the therapeutic mechanism of Chinese herbs for Kawasaki disease(KD).Methods Twenty-five KD children in the treatment group received routine western medicine and Qingying Decoction when fever,Zhuye Shigao Decoction after fever subsiding;23 KD children in the control group received routine western medicine only.The platelet count(PLT),mean platelet volume(MPV),platelet distribution width(PDW) and plateletcrit(PCT) were compared after admission for 1,2,3 and 4 week(s) of treatment.Meanwhile,the incidence of coronary artery disease was observed with two-dimension color echocardiography.Results After admission for one week,the differences of PLT,MPV,PDW and PCT between the two groups were insignificant(P0.05).After two and three weeks,the PLT was increased,MPV and PDW were decreased in the two groups(P0.05 compared with that after one week),and the increase of PLT as well as the decrease of MPV and PDW in the treatment group differed from those in the control group(P0.05);however,the difference of PCT in the two groups was insignificant(P0.05).After 4 weeks,the difference of PLT in the two groups was significant(P0.05),and the other parameters became normal(P0.05).The incidence of coronary artery disease was 8.0% in the treatment group and 21.7% in the control group,the difference being significant(P0.05).Conclusion The possible therapeutic mechanism of heat-clearing and blood-activating herbs for children Kawasaki disease is related with enhancing the recovery of the platelet parameters,decreasing the incidence of coronary artery disease and reducing the platelet activation.