Children's Health Hemangioma - Ending the Trauma

March 26, 2009 (HealthNewsDigest.com) - Recent advances in the treatment of Hemangioma are giving new hope to the parents enduring the shock and despair of discovering that their child is suffering from this condition. Hemangiomas and other vascular anomalies, run the gamut of small, inconsequential marks to life threatening and disfiguring lesions, and over 400,000 children in the United States alone are born with this condition every year.

Better knowledge of the basic biology of Hemangiomas, improvements in technology, improved management of lesions, and more parental awareness gained through the internet are all contributing to changing views on early medical intervention.

Dr Marcelo Hochman is a parent who was dismayed with the discovery of a hemangioma on his infant son’s chest. Though it was ultimately a non-consequential lesion, the lack of information and guidance was the impetus for him to become interested in these children. The conventional wisdom of ‘leave it alone, it will go away’ still perpetuated today in most quarters prompted Dr Hochman to found the Hemangioma International Treatment Center and The Hemangioma Treatment Foundation to deal exclusively with children suffering from hemangiomas and vascular malformations.

In an effort to expand access to those parents unable to afford the cost of medical treatment, Dr Hochman founded The Hemangioma Treatment Foundation in 2003. To date, the foundation has provided care to 110 children who otherwise would not have been treated.. Dr Hochman’s specialization is attracting an increasing number of patients from abroad, including Mexico, United Arab Emirates, Costa Rica, Peru, China and Turkey, as well as disadvantaged children from the United States. Why girls and low birth weight babies are increasingly affected by this condition is one of the research areas currently being investigated by the foundation.

During the last ten years, Dr Hochman has treated over 1,000 patients. Two examples of the success of his treatment are the young boy with a facial tumor that had grown so large that the boy’s parents had been told by their local hospital that further treatment was not an option and that the child should be taken home to die. This advice was unacceptable to the parents who then found Dr Hochman via the Internet. Through a variety of surgeries and treatments Dr Hochman successfully treated the child who is now vibrant, happy and attending elementary school.

The second example was of a young girl whose hemangioma first appeared as a golf ball sized tumor on the tip of her nose, distorting her appearance. Again, Dr Hochman operated successfully removing the hemangioma. Six years later the child had the self-confidence to enter, and win, the “Little Miss South Carolina” pageant.

Feeling different because of a facial disfigurement can have significant emotional and psychological consequences on a child as they develop their sense of self, especially between the ages of 2-3 years of age. Being singled out by others and not being a welcome part of a group is extremely distressing for the child is internalized as a feeling of ‘there must be something wrong with me’. Likewise, it is heartbreaking for any parent to hear things like. “Why is everyone staring at me?” or “Why won’t anyone play with me? and even ‘What did you do to your child?”

Because of the new environment of early medical intervention fewer children and families will have to experience these feelings in the future.

www.hemangiomatreatment.com

www.HealthNewsDigest.com