Serum cytokine profiles are altered in patients with progressive infantile hemangioma

Infantile hemangioma sometimes grows rapidly to a significant size around the first 2 months of life, which can be problematic and even destroy normal tissue. However, it is very difficult to predict the tumor growth at the first visit and to decide necessity of treatment. Therefore the identification of the biomarkers that can indicate a tendency to grow is clinically very important. In the present study, we evaluated the possibility that serum cytokine levels are available as the marker of hemangioma growth. Progressive hemangioma was defined as a lesion showing increased tumor size and/or coloration two weeks before and after the serum sampling, and we used membrane array to compare the twenty cytokine profiles between the sera of 3 progressive hemangioma patients and sex-/age-matched non-progressive hemangioma patients. As a result, many of the 20 cytokines were detected in the patients' sera. When a 2-fold difference in the mean levels of each group was considered meaningful, 6 of the 20 cytokines (IGF-1, IL-6, IL-8, PIGF, RANTES, TGF-β1) were down-regulated in the progressive hemangioma group compared to the non- progressive hemangioma group, and there were statistically significant difference (p < 0.05): especially, IGF-1, IL-6, IL-8, PIGF, and TGF-β1 did not expressed in all 3 progressive hemangioma patients. Accordingly, complicated cytokine network by these multiple cytokines may control the pathogenesis, and these cytokine levels may become clinically useful tumor markers. Furthermore, immunotherapy against them will be novel therapeutic approach.