Residual Lesions After Pharmacological and Dye‐Laser Treatment of Infantile Hemangiomas: Critical Review of 432 Cases

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Infantile hemangiomas (IHs) are the most common benign tumors in infanthood. Although they are often self-limiting, management of IHs is still controversial because residual lesions may persist in some cases. The aim of this study is to report our experience with patients affected with IH and investigate the frequency of residual lesions in treated versus untreated patients. STUDY DESIGN/MATERIALS AND METHODS: This retrospective observational study enrolled patients with IHs evaluated over the past 10 years. Patients were managed with systemic or local pharmacotherapy, laser therapy, a combination of them, or with observation only. RESULTS: A total of 432 patients were included: 71% received one or more therapies for IHs; 75.2% of untreated patients had at least one residual lesion compared with 41.4% of treated patients (P < 0.001). Patients treated with laser therapy or topical timolol had the lowest rate of residual lesions. CONCLUSIONS: This rather large case series suggests that IHs management with pharmacotherapy and especially laser therapy is associated with a lower number of residual lesions than observation only. Although propranolol can be very useful to avoid life-threatening complications and severe tissue impairment, laser therapy and topical timolol are potential effective treatments to decrease the incidence of residual lesions, mostly associated with superficial IHs. Lasers Surg. Med. (c) 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.