Evaluation of pain incidence due to venous malformation based on data from 85 institutions in Japan

Depending on the size and site of the venous malformation (VM), patients with VM often experience pain and swelling. VMs in the head and neck typically have lower pain rates due to complications than VMs in the limbs and trunk. We evaluated the heuristics on VM pain by statistically analyzing data of patients with VM from a multicenter database in Japan.

We collected data on age, sex, pain, lesion site, lesion depth, and lesion size for 2199 clinical cases with common VMs. We created categories for lesion depth and size and excluded multiple lesion cases that overlapped in these categories. Next, we constructed cross-tabulation tables to analyze the factors that contributed to pain. Finally, we evaluated the risk of pain in patients with VM by performing binomial logistic regression analysis based on age, sex, lesion site, lesion depth, and lesion size.

For patients with limb and trunk VMs, the most frequent site of pain was the muscle, tendon, and bone, with an incidence of 79%, followed by the skin and subcutis, with an incidence of 43%. For patients with head and neck VMs, the most frequent site of pain was the muscle, tendon, and bone, with an incidence of 28%, followed by the skin and subcutis, with an incidence of 11% (P < .01). For pain incidence by lesion size, pain most frequently occurred in lesions >10 cm (67%), followed by lesions between 5 cm and 10 cm (56%) and lesions <5 cm (29%).

Our study indicated a clear order of factors that contributed to pain: lesion site > lesion depth > lesion size. Age was also an important factor. Infants and children had low pain complication frequencies with limb and trunk VMs. As the patients aged, the pain frequency became higher, reaching 50% at almost 7 years of age.