How to treat venous malformations of the trunk and perineum

  Venous malformations of the trunk and perineum account for about 20% of the total incidence of venous malformations. Venous malformations have abundant cavernous sinuses and surrounding anastomoses, especially diffuse venous malformations have a wide range, mostly progressive development to surrounding normal tissues, with a trend of slow “malignant” expansion, resulting in local tissue hyperplasia and deformation, which not only affects the appearance and function, but also at a later stage because of the large invasion range, abnormal blood flow channels and more. The thickening and increasing number of traffic channels with the normal venous trunk make the treatment more difficult. Therefore, once the diagnosis is confirmed, early treatment is recommended.  Torso venous malformation has the following characteristics: 1. the scope is more diffuse, the blood supply around the tumor, conventional methods (such as tourniquet) is not easy to block the blood flow; 2. the site involved is special, adjacent to the viscera, especially in the chest and abdominal wall, can invade the thoracic or abdominal cavity, whether surgery or injection treatment difficulty and risk increases: 3. easily confused with other torso masses, especially venous malformation is only manifested as a subcutaneous mass, posture Sexual volume changes are not obvious, MRI should be routinely done to determine the site, level, scope, and infiltration of venous malformation to guide the development of the program and treatment. The perineal venous malformation mainly involves some important functional organs, such as perineum, glans of men, labia of women, vaginal lining, etc., especially the venous malformation involving the very richly vascularized anterior rectal plexus or cavernous body of penis, which is quite difficult to treat. These venous malformations are usually innate, but often show symptoms gradually as they grow, and patients are often seen for bruised lumps on the body surface or for pain or blood in the stool. The distribution and nature of the lesion can be clarified by MRI. If the lesion is too deep or involves some important vascular flow areas, DSA examination is required to avoid serious consequences of blind treatment.  The treatment of perineal venous malformations of the trunk is divided into non-surgical and surgical treatments. Surgical excisional treatment is mainly applied to those lesions that are superficial in distribution, limited in scope and not near important functional organs, and can be repaired by direct suturing or local flap transfer after removing the lesions as completely as possible. For those venous malformations that are larger in scope, have unclear boundaries and involve important organs of the perineum, they cannot be treated simply by surgical excision, and according to our clinical practice in the past years, we generally adopt a treatment plan based on multiple embolization and sclerotherapy injections, which can achieve better results.  The embolic agent anhydrous alcohol used in embolization sclerotherapy can cause rapid spasm of blood vessels and damage the intima to form thrombus, but the damage effect is rapidly reduced after dilution, and the treatment is safe. The treatment procedure is as follows: first, inject a small amount of anhydrous ethanol in several times to make the reflux veins around the tumor spasm rapidly and damage the intima to form thrombus, which can embolize the reflux veins of the tumor quickly and effectively, and then inject a slow but long-lasting sclerosing agent (such as sodium cod liver oil acid) which can be retained in the tumor cavity and not easily lost, and the sclerosis effect is obviously improved. The addition of the antitumor drug methotrexate to the sclerosing agent makes the intimal damage more complete and difficult to recanalize, achieving complete sclerosis and less recurrence.  Because of the rich blood vessels around the tumor in the trunk or perineum, it cannot slow down the blood flow like the extremities can be on the venous tourniquet. If embolization agent or sclerosing agent is injected directly into the tumor cavity, it is easy to be lost, which not only has poor sclerosis effect, but more importantly, it will lead to serious complications such as distant embolism and even pulmonary embolism. Therefore, in order to improve the safety of embolization and sclerosis, for venous malformations of lesser extent, compression around the tumor is needed to slow down the blood flow within the tumor so that anhydrous ethanol can rapidly occlude the refluxing veins and enhance the embolization effect. For larger range of malformations, especially those with abundant or thick reflux veins, the safety of treatment can be significantly improved by placing copper needles inside the tumor first and then electrifying (electrochemical method) to form a partial thrombus in the tumor cavity to slow down the blood flow, and then embolizing and sclerosing injection treatment within a week. For large scale venous malformation, it is necessary to divide the treatment by injection, which can avoid necrosis of the whole tissue at the treatment site, and each treatment interval is 3-6 months, and the next treatment will be carried out after revascularization of the sclerotic tumor until the tumor basically subsides, and the morphology and function of most cases can be well restored. The peak period of swelling is within 2 days after embolization sclerotherapy, there will be swelling and pain, etc. After several weeks, the swelling gradually subsides and the tumor hardens in the treated area, the sclerotic tumor usually takes 3-6 months to slowly absorb and soften and subside.  For larger, diffuse venous malformations that cause local deformity and require surgery, we choose embolization and sclerosis followed by surgery. The reason is that if the lesion is completely removed by surgery, it will be traumatic, bleeding, unclear vision, easy to accidentally injure the important local tissues, and the postoperative deformity will be obvious and easy to affect the local function and morphology; if partial resection is palliative, the residual vascular deformity and anastomotic branch will become the “base” and recur. If surgery is performed after embolization and sclerotherapy, the anastomotic vessels around the tumor invading normal tissues are embolized and sclerosed, which not only eliminates the “base” for recurrence of hemangioma, but also maximally preserves the normal soft tissues infiltrated by venous malformation; 7-10 days after embolization and sclerosis, the swelling basically subsides, the intravascular thrombus is stable and not easily dislodged, and the boundary between the necrotic tissue and normal tissue is basically reduced. The boundary between necrotic tissue and normal tissue is basically clear, and the surgery is safe, can effectively remove necrotic tissue and does not affect wound healing. In the surgical excision of scleroma, there is less bleeding, clear vision, less accidental injury to important tissues, less trauma, and selective excision of part of the tumor according to local morphology, so that the local morphology and function can be protected to the greatest extent, with cosmetic effect.  In conclusion, the treatment of venous malformation of trunk and perineum is a process that needs to be carried out step by step and several times. Due to the special nature of such diseases as venous malformation, it is difficult to achieve the purpose of radical cure simply by several embolization and sclerosis or surgery.  Typical case: The patient, male, 20 years old, had a venous malformation at the glans, which was surgically removed in an outside hospital and recurred one year after the operation. On examination, a 10mm×18mm bruised mass with slight protrusion was seen above the glans. After admission, he was treated with embolization and sclerotherapy. After the operation, the swelling at the glans was obvious and the foreskin edema was obvious. After discharge from the hospital, the patient was followed up for five years without recurrence.