Adult KD
In the making...
Finding Inspiration in Every Turn
Adult KD Clinic in San Diego
We are pleased to share a new educational video created by the Kawasaki Disease Research Center at UC San Diego, designed specifically for adult cardiologists. This resource highlights how Kawasaki Disease can manifest later in life and equips providers with vital knowledge to improve patient outcomes. Our goal is to make high-quality, accessible education available to the entire cardiology community. By replacing costly in-person trainings and travel with concise, expert-led videos, we can save institutions resources while ensuring clinicians everywhere benefit from the latest expertise.
We invite you to show this video at your conferences, within your practice, or across your department. If you find this resource valuable and wish to help us create more, please consider supporting our mission with a gift to the Kawasaki Disease Research Center.
An intro video to the adult cardiologist
​Pioneered by Dr. Jane Burns (pediatric infectious disease physician) and Dr. John Gordon (adult interventional cardiologist), the San Diego Adult Kawasaki Disease (KD) Program provides care for adult KD patients with coronary artery abnormalities. This transition of care of program starts by educating patients and families with KD in childhood treated at Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, identifying those who need adult cardiovascular follow up and transferring care of these patients to an adult cardiologist (Dr. Jiken Bhatt at the San Diego Cardiac Center). This program ensures that adult KD patients with coronary artery issues receive the proper care and expertise needed to lead long, healthy lives. Drs. Burns and Bhatt also oversee the San Diego Adult KD Collaborative (adultkd@ucsd.edu), an interdisciplinary study that is designed to teach us about the cardiovascular and general health of individuals who experienced KD in childhood.
​
The 4th Mount Sinai Adult Congenital Heart Disease Symposium
Kawasaki Disease Across The Ages
The 4th Mount Sinai Adult Congenital Heart Disease Symposium — Kawasaki Disease Across the Ages: From Childhood Onset to Adult Outcomes, held at the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY on September 12–13, 2025, marked a transformative moment for the Kawasaki disease (KD) community. With a deliberate focus on the lifelong care of KD survivors, the meeting underscored the urgent need to establish a dedicated medical “home” for adults living with KD.
Long perceived as a pediatric illness, KD is increasingly recognized as a lifespan condition, with sequelae that include coronary artery aneurysms, ischemic complications, and progressive myocardial changes. These require ongoing surveillance well into adulthood, yet many patients are lost during the vulnerable transition from pediatric to adult care. The symposium confronted this gap directly, convening pediatric and adult cardiologists, internists, MFM and adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) specialists to bridge disciplines and reimagine
models of care. Core themes included structured transition programs, multidisciplinary team-based follow up, and introducing KD expertise within adult cardiology training pathways. By bringing together global leaders, the meeting fostered ground-breaking collaborations that extended beyond knowledge-sharing to tangible outcomes: new research partnerships, joint clinical initiatives, and mentorship networks linking pediatric and adult providers.
Beyond disseminating state of the art science, the symposium reframed KD as a lifespan condition, igniting a cultural shift toward shared responsibility and coordinated care, and laying the foundation for a sustainable, cohesive system to support KD patients throughout their lives.