Vascular Tumors of the Airway

Abstract

The most common vascular anomaly of the airway, defined as the airway between the glottis and carina, is the infantile airway hemangioma. This chapter will focus exclusively on the airway infantile hemangioma, and less commonly occurring vascular anomalies of the airway will be discussed in other chapters. Infantile hemangiomas (IH) are proliferative vascular tumors, composed of endothelial cells, which can be located on the skin or within the subglottis, trachea, and/or mediastinum. At birth hemangiomas are either absent or minimally evident. However, they grow quickly in the first months of life, following predictable stages of rapid proliferation, prolonged involution, and finally end-stage degeneration to fibrofatty residuum. In the case of airway infantile hemangiomas (AIH), rapid growth during the proliferative stage leads to life-threatening airway obstruction and requires emergent treatment.