The Management of Giant Cerviofacial Lymphatic Malformations in Children.

OBJECTIVE

Lymphatic malformations (LMs) are rare and benign diseases. This article aimed to present a series of surgically treated giant cervicofacial LMs in children.

METHODS

A retrospective analysis of giant cervicofacial LMs (tumor diameter greater than 10 cm) in children over the past 8 years was performed in our department.

RESULTS

The 10 patients included 4 males and 6 females. Macrocystic lesion presented in 4 patients, mixed cystic lesion presented in 4 patients, and microcystic lesion presented in 2 patients. All the patients underwent surgical resection combined with bleomycin sclerotherapy. Despite the wide range of lesions, most patients (7/10, 70%) received only a single treatment, 3 patients had a recurrent lesion. Seven patients experienced complete or almost complete resolution of the disease with an average follow-up time of 26.4 months.

CONCLUSIONS

Surgical resection is the preferred method for the treatment of giant LMs, combination of bleomycin sclerotherapy can reduce the recurrence rate. The curative effect of macrocystic disease is relatively enhanced compared with microcystic and mixed cystic diseases.