Treatment of Refractory Infantile Hemangiomas and Pulmonary Hypertension with Sirolimus in a Pediatric Patient

Infantile hemangioma is a benign vascular neoplasm that spontaneously involutes over time. Management, when needed, consists of medications, laser treatment and surgical excision. We describe a 3-year-old girl who presented shortly after birth with diffuse cutaneous hemangiomas, hepatosplenomegaly with liver lesions, anemia, and acute heart failure. She was diagnosed with hepatic and cutaneous infantile hemangioma based on skin biopsy. She developed progressive pulmonary hypertension with numerous pulmonary nodules suspicious for pulmonary arteriovenous malformations. She was started on sirolimus and had significant improvement in her pulmonary hypertension and liver lesions. This report supports prior studies that sirolimus is effective for vascular anomalies including IH refractory to conventional therapy.