Natural course of cavernous hepatic hemangioma

Cavernous hepatic hemangiomas are benign liver tumors and present as incidental findings on sonographic examinations, but little is known concerning their natural course. Therefore, we performed a clinical and imaging follow-up of 64 cases of cavernous hepatic hemangioma in 50 patients during an average 18.8 month period. One case presented a symptom of slightly right upper quadrant pain and two cases showed thrombocytopenia. In one of the thrombocytopenia cases, cavernous hepatic hemangioma was resected because of Kasabach-Merrit syndrome. No case increased in size during follow-up, but one case decreased and disappeared. These results suggested that prolonged clinical and imaging follow-up of cavernous hepatic hemangiomas may be needed.