Cherry hemangioma

Cherry angiomas, also known as Campbell De Morgan spots or senile angiomas, are cherry red papules on the skin. They are a harmless benign tumor, containing an abnormal proliferation of blood vessels, and have no relationship to cancer. They are the most common kind of angioma, and increase with age, occurring in nearly all adults over 30 years. Cherry angiomas, also known as Campbell De Morgan spots or senile angiomas, are cherry red papules on the skin. They are a harmless benign tumor, containing an abnormal proliferation of blood vessels, and have no relationship to cancer. They are the most common kind of angioma, and increase with age, occurring in nearly all adults over 30 years. Campbell de Morgan is the nineteenth-century British surgeon who first described them. Cherry angiomas are made up of clusters of capillaries at the surface of the skin, forming a small round dome ('papule'), which may be flat topped. They range in colour from bright red to purple. When they first develop, they may be only a tenth of a millimeter in diameter and almost flat, appearing as small red dots. However, they then usually grow to about one or two millimeters across, and sometimes to a centimeter or more in diameter. As they grow larger, they tend to expand in thickness, and may take on the raised and rounded shape of a dome. Multiple adjoining angiomas form a polypoid angioma. Because the blood vessels comprising an angioma are so close to the skin's surface, cherry angiomas may bleed profusely if they are injured. One study found that the majority of capillaries in cherry hemangiomas are fenestrated and stain for carbonic anhydrase activity.