An introduction to the treatment of hemangiomas

Because many children and their families come to consult the treatment plan of hemangioma in the clinic recently, I will talk about the treatment of hemangioma: hemangioma is a common congenital and vascular disease, about 80% of them belong to congenital hemangiomas in the oral and maxillofacial region, hemangiomas not only bring the influence on people’s appearance, but also pose a threat to people’s health. Hemangioma is a benign tumor occurring in vascular tissues, which is formed due to the growth of vascular tissues in the form of misshapen tumor-like hyperplasia. It is divided into two kinds: primary and secondary, of which 75% are primary and 25% are secondary. Secondary tumors account for 75% of primary tumors and about 25% of secondary tumors. Most secondary tumors appear in infancy, a few are found in adulthood, and the etiology is still unclear. Primary, i.e., congenital fetal, is formed by the proliferation of the human embryonic blood vessel network, and is present at birth. Hemangiomas can be asymptomatic when they are small, but if they grow progressively, they often bring fear to their families and themselves. Literature report: In 1938, Lister firstly proposed that 80%-90% of children with hemangiomas regressed by themselves at the age of 5 years, and many people reported this phenomenon later on. Unfortunately, there is no report of such hemangiomas regressing by themselves in China, which may be due to the lack of this kind of epidemiological study, or the harms of hemangiomas are small, which is ignored by the experts. In my opinion, the best time for treatment of hemangioma is around 2 years old, because the literature describes that hemangioma often grows rapidly in 6-8 months and stops growing in 1 year old, therefore, it is better to observe whether the hemangioma continues to grow or not, and whether it shows the symptoms of compression and change of appearance, etc., and then the treatment plan can be considered, and the ways of treatment are also diversified: surgery, laser, hardening, and so on. There are various treatment methods: surgery, laser, sclerosing agent injection, hormone, acupuncture, compression, electrocoagulation, embolization, etc. How to choose the treatment plan? Due to the diversity of the location and size of the hemangioma and the uncertainty of the treatment effect, it is often necessary to treat it in multiple ways, and the final treatment effect varies from person to person, so it is necessary to adopt different treatment plans for different patients. We need to make a personalized treatment plan after checking in the clinic.