[Clinical aspects and therapy of hemangioma]

Vascular malformations of the skin, such as angiomatous naevi (haemangiomas) are discussed in the present paper. Haemangiomas can be differentiated by histology into "capillary" and "cavernous" types. Therapy should be very conservative because about 95% of all haemangiomas in childhood tend to involute spontaneously. Active treatment is necessary for complications, such as bleeding or ulceration, the Kasabach-Merritt syndrome, or tumours at special sites such as the eyelid, lips etc. Conservative treatment includes steroids and embolisation by fibrin. Surgery includes the largely forgotten magnesium seed treatment first described 90 years ago; 99.8% pure magnesium foil and wires 0.5 and 1.0 mm thick were implanted into nine haemangiomas. Fibrosis and tumour regression were observed in seven cases: two further cases are still under treatment.