Cryocarboxy Surgery: A New Armamentarium in the Treatment of Infantile Hemangiomas of the Lips.

BACKGROUND

Cryotherapy was reported in the treatment of infantile hemangiomas by many studies using liquid nitrogen as a cryogen.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate the outcome of cryo-carboxy surgery in treatment of infantile lip hemangiomas.

METHODS

In this study, we present the use of carbon dioxide as the cryogen in 50 patients with infantile hemangiomas of the lips with successful results. The patient evaluation was done including the improvement in color, texture, and volume of the lesion and each of the three parameters was given a score on a 4-point scale; excellent, good, fair, or poor.

RESULTS

The average evaluation score of our patients was excellent in 37 (74%) cases and good in 13 (26%) cases. We had no fair or poor results. There was no postprocedural hypopigmentation in any of the patients with lesions limited to the mucosa and Vermillion. In contrast, all cases with lesions extending to the lip skin (10 cases) experienced hypopigmentation which resolved spontaneously within 3 months. No complications were observed in our cases during the follow-up period and no cases, during the follow-up period, showed regrowth of the treated lesions.

CONCLUSION

We can conclude that, cryo-carboxy surgery is an effective safe new tool in the armamentarium of the treatment of infantile hemangiomas of the lips with successful results.