European clinical trial for Kawasaki disease to be led by GOSH and ICH researchers

Researchers at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH) and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) are to lead a new clinical trial for Kawasaki syndrome (KD-CAAP), a rare immune system condition that causes swelling of the blood vessels of the heart and can lead to severe fever and risk of heart problems such as aneurysms.Professor Paul Brogan (Professor in Vasculitis and Honorary Consultant in Rheumatology at ICH and GOSH) and Dr Despina Eleftheriou (Associate Professor and Honorary Consultant Paediatric Rheumatologist at GOSH) were awarded over €5 million in funding for the trial to be run through a new European consortium, conect4children.

Funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU; grant agreement No 777389), this network aims to speed up the development of innovative children’s medicines by implementing new approaches to evaluate new medicines and collaborating across 18 countries.

The trial, which aims to recruit 262 children from 40 centres across Europe, will look at the effectiveness of using of steroids in addition to the standard treatment for Kawasaki syndrome, intravenous immunoglobulins. Expected to start recruiting patients next year, the study is one of the first four trials to become part of the conect4children network.

The trial was designed alongside the Kawasaki disease patient group, Societi, to ensure that the experiences of children and young people are reflected in the study design and to minimise the burden of their participation in research. The clinical trial will be supported by the NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre.

Read the c4c press release

This project has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking under grant agreement No 777389. The Joint Undertaking receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and EFPIA.