Cavernous hemangiomas of the liver: enlargement over time.

Abstract

It has been reported that cavernous hemangiomas of the liver either do not enlarge over time, or, of the very few lesions that have shown an increase in diameter on follow-up imaging studies, the increase has been minimal. The objective of this paper is to report growth of four cavernous hemangiomas that were shown to have doubled to tripled in diameter on follow-up imaging studies done between 34 months and 10.5 years after the initial diagnosis. This report indicates that hepatic hemangiomas can grow significantly in diameter, although such growth is unusual. Despite the growth of the lesion, however, if the imaging features are characteristic of hemangioma an imaging diagnosis can still be made confidently.