conjunctival changes in children with kawasaki disease cytopathologic characterization objective to examine the cytopathological changes in the conjunctiva of patients with active kawasaki diseasestudy design casecontrol prospective study bilateral conjunctival swabs were obtained from 3 groups of children patients with acute kd 11 agematched controls 7 and patients with inactive kd 9 the thinprep prepared and papanicolaou stained smears were examined blindly by 2 cytopathologists the cell count differential of cells was performed and recorded quantitatively and comparisons between the 3 patient groups were maderesults only neutrophil counts showed a significant difference among the 3 groups the average scores for the acute kd control group and patients with inactive kd were 35 16 and 13 respectively using the pearson chi2 test the difference between the acute kd and the inactive group was statistically significant for both eyes right p 0049 left p 0004 samples from acute kd patients were more cellular neutrophils surrounding conjunctival epithelial cells or neutrophilic rosetting were seen in 4 36 cases of the active disease group but not in the other groupsconclusion neutrophilic conjunctivitis is characteristic in patients of acute kd that may be of value in the initial evaluation and subsequent followup of kd patients