Incidence, clinical characteristics and risk factors for infantile hemangioma ulceration after oral propranolol initiation: a retrospective study.

Source: PubMed, NCBI / U.S. National Library of Medicine

Some patients with infantile hemangioma (IH) still develop ulcerations during oral propranolol, but these IH ulcerations have not been systematically studied. To analyze the incidence, clinical features and risk factors associated with IH ulceration after oral propranolol initiation. Retrospective study at one tertiary referral center. We evaluated 470 patients with IH who received oral propranolol and 51 patients with nonintervention IH ulceration; 24 (5.1%) developed IH ulceration during oral propranolol. The median age at the discovery of IH ulceration was 3.9 months in the IH ulceration group after oral propranolol initiation, which was significantly later than the 2.0 months in the nonintervention IH ulceration group (P=0.013). Multivariate analysis revealed that mixed IH (odds ratio (OR)=5.620; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.419-22.265), indeterminate IH (OR=8.219; 95% CI: 1.560-43.305), and segmental IH (OR=22.806; 95% CI: 2.157-241.028) were independent risk factors for IH ulceration after oral propranolol initiation. Conversely, IH on the trunk (OR=0.063, 95% CI: 0.007-0.580) and extremity (OR=0.016, 95% CI: 0.001-0.289) were protective factors. This was a single-center retrospective study. This study reports the incidence of IH ulceration in patients who received oral propranolol and identifies risk factors associated with IH ulceration after oral propranolol initiation.