A Review of Head and Neck Hemangiomas in Children

Introduction:Vascular lesions are the most common congenital abnormalities during infancy. The term hemangioma has been used for a long time to describe all the vascular lesions; however, atpresent the terms hemangioma and vascular malformations are used to refer to twolesions with separate entities. Hemangiomas are the most common infant tumors which arenot evident at birth and proliferate during the first year of life and then regress. However,vascular malformations are present at birth and grow slowly during the entire life and do notdisappear spontaneously.Materials and methods:In the present review, a search was run on electronic databases for article published onchildhood hemangiomas and their prevalence and areas most commonly affected wereevaluated.Results:Soft tissue hemangiomas of the oral cavity mostly affect the tongue, lips and buccal mucosa.Clinically, they are smooth or raised and are dark red to blue in color. Intra-bony lesions ofthe jaws are sometimes asymptomatic and are sometimes associated with pain and swelling.From a classification viewpoint, the vascular spaces are classified into capillary, cavernousand cellular types based on their size. From a histologic viewpoint, hemangiomas have aproliferative phase, which is followed by a static phase and regress at most up to 6 years ofage. Morphologically, they are characterized by smooth and inactive normal endothelial cellsin the connective tissue. In order to make a distinction between hemangiomas and vascularmalformations the bFGF factor in children’s urine can be used. Hemangiomas are three timesmore common in girls than in boys and in 60% of cases afflict the head and neck region, withskin being the most commonly involved tissue in the area. Their size varies from a small selflimitinglesion to life-threatening tumors. The anatomic location of the lesion is an importanttherapeutic challenge for physicians. Some of the most commonly used treatment modalitiesare injection of high-dose corticosteroids into the lesions, treatment with interferon andpropanol, ambolization and finally, surgery for life-threatening lesions.Conclusion:A review of literature shows that although hemangiomas are the most prevalent tumorsduring infancy, there are ambiguities about them, necessitating further studies. A highincidence of such tumors in girls compared to boys suggests the role of hormones in theirincidence. In addition, a higher susceptibility of the head and neck region for hemangiomasshould always be considered. Finally, although their spontaneous regression is due to theapoptosis of endothelial cells, the mechanisms involved in their formation are still unknownand further studies are necessary in this respect.

کلیدواژه ها:

Hemangioma ، Children ، Head ، Neck ، Tumor