Intralesional injection of bevacizumab versus triamcinolone acetonide in infantile hemangioma

Abstract

Background: Infantile hemangioma (IH) in most cases can be a self-limited condition; however, it may be ulcerated, infected, causing organ function disability and even death. Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) has a role in IH. Bevacizumab is a monoclonal antibody against VEGF-A.

Objectives: We aimed to evaluate and compare the efficacy of intralesional injection of bevacizumab versus triamcinolone acetonide (TAC) in IH.

Methods: Thirty patients with IH were included in this study, divided into two equal groups, and treated with intralesional injection; the first group by bevacizumab and the second group by TAC. The injections in both groups were given every 4 weeks for six sessions. Assessment of the clinical response was done by the hemangioma activity score (HAS) and visual analog scale (VAS).

Results: Both treatment modalities gave similar initial improvement after three sessions. However, with continuing injection sessions, bevacizumab reached a response’s plateau and TAC gave better significant results after six injection sessions reading both HAS (p = .0017) and VAS (p ≤.001).

Conclusion: Both intralesional injection of bevacizumab and TAC were safe and effective treatments in early proliferative IH after three sessions, however, TAC injection was significantly better than bevacizumab after six sessions.

Keywords:

• Infantile hemangioma
• bevacizumab
• triamcinolone acetonide

Disclosure statement

The authors of this work have no conflict of interest to declare.