Pediatric cranial intraosseous hemangiomas: a review

Hemangiomas are benign, slow-growing tumors composed of sinusoidal blood vessels. Skeletal hemangiomas are uncommon and are mostly vertebral, followed by cranial in location. Cranial hemangiomas are very rarely encountered in children. Authors report a 12-year girl who presented with a painless enlarging mass over the parietal scalp for 3 months. Imaging revealed a left parietal intraosseous lytic mass with a sunburst appearance. Enbloc removal and cranioplasty was performed, and histopathology was suggestive of hemangioma. We reviewed the literature on pediatric cranial intraosseous hemangiomas (PCIH) (age ≤18 years) by searching online database. Including ours, a total of 24 cases were analyzed. Mean age was 10.2 years (range 4 months–17 years). Eight were in the first decade and 16 were in the second decade. Male:female ratio was 12:12 (1:1). A painless palpable mass was the commonest presenting feature. Parietal and frontal bones were most commonly involved. Intracranial extension was noted in cases. Mean size of the lesion was 5 cm (range 1–12 cm). Twenty-two underwent primary surgical removal while two had additional pre-operative embolization. Surgical procedures were craniectomy alone (n-3), craniectomy + cranioplasty (n-6), tumor excision + remodeling (n-3), and tumor debulking (n-2). Histopathology was cavernous type in majority of cases. Mean follow-up duration was 11.8 months (range 2–38 months). There were no recurrences. One patient died due to systemic infection. Ours is the first review exclusively on PCIH. Although rare, they need to be considered in the differential diagnosis of lytic skull lesions in children. Enbloc removal with cranioplasty is the preferred treatment in vault hemangiomas, while embolization followed by debulking would suffice in large cranial base lesions.