ReportTopical imiquimod in the treatment of infantile hemangiomas: A retrospective study
Section snippets
Study patients
The study was conducted in the dermatology clinic of our tertiary academic referral center. The study received ethical approval from the research ethics board. Patients were identified by searching through the dermatology database for diagnoses of IHs. In this retrospective study, only patients treated with topical imiquimod were included.
Methods
Data collection included demographic characteristics, age of onset of the hemangioma, physical examination, and response to therapy as documented by digital
Results
A total of 18 children, 16 girls and 2 boys, with a median age of 18 weeks (range: 4-256 weeks) were included. Most patients were treated during the proliferative phase (4-48 weeks); two patients with deep IH (cases 16 and 17) had the treatment commenced during the involuting phase (256 and 204 weeks, respectively) to assess if topical imiquimod could influence their involution, as no previous data had been formulated on its efficacy in this phase. Two patients had more than one hemangioma. In
Discussion
The pathogenesis of hemangiomas is not well understood. However, the angiogenesis-dependent tumors concept was widely postulated and supported by many studies.7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Cell marker studies showed antibodies to angiogenesis promoters such as proliferating cell nuclear antigen, vascular endothelial growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor, and type IV collagenase preferentially staining sections from hemangiomas22 and adjacent normal tissue,23 and insulin-like growth factor-224 in
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Funding sources: None.
Conflicts of interest: None identified.
Reprints not available from the authors.