Screening for infantile hepatic hemangioma in patients with cutaneous infantile hemangioma: A multicenter prospective study.

Abstract

Abdominal ultrasonography has been proposed to screen for infantile hepatic hemangioma (IHH) in patients with multiple cutaneous infantile hemangiomas (IHs). The aim of this study was to establish the optimal cutoff point for the number of cutaneous IHs needed to screen for IHH. We performed a prospective, multicenter study to screen for IHH in patients younger than 9 months who had multiple cutaneous IHs (n ≥ 3) on ultrasonography. For comparison, a group of patients with 1 or 2 focal cutaneous IHs was also recruited. In total, 676 patients with at least 3 cutaneous IHs and 980 patients with 1 or 2 focal cutaneous IHs were enrolled. Thirty-one patients were found to have IHH. A higher number of cutaneous IHs was associated with an increased risk of IHH (R = 0.973; P < .001). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that 5 cutaneous IHs was the optimal cutoff point to screen for IHH, with an area under the curve of 0.872 (P < .001; 95% confidence interval, 0.789-0.955). This was an uncontrolled study. Screening for IHH is recommended in patients younger than 9 months who present with 5 or more cutaneous IHs.