Objective: Looking for an objective biomedical index to distinguish types and phases of hemangioma in order to provide an objective basis for selecting clinical treatment to hemangioma.
Methods: ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay) was used to determine serum VEGF concentration of 15 patients with proliferative hemangioma, 6 with involuted hemangioma, 6 with vascular malformation and 8 infants of the control group.
Results: The serum VEGF concentrations of 15 proliferative hemangioma patients were significantly higher than those of involuted hemangioma patients, vascular malformation patients and control group infants. The serum VEGF concentrations of involuted hemangioma patients were a little bit higher than those of vascular malformation patients and control group infants, but without statistic significance.
Conclusions: ELISA could easily and accurately determine the serum VEGF concentration of different types and different phases of hemangioma. The determination of serum VEGF concentration could provide guidance for selecting a protocol of systemic corticosteroid treatment for proliferative hemangioma. Combined with gene expression and distribution of VEGF and its receptors and some other cytokines, the determination of serum VEGF concentration could help elucidate the mechanism of proliferative hemangioma.