Giant hemangioma of the liver: report of three cases with one recurrent case

Abstract

Hemangioma of the liver is the most common benign liver tumor with incidence ranging from less than 1% up to 20%. The tumors usually are solitary, with size less than 4 cm. They are more frequently found in females and in adults. 1 We report three cases of hemangioma in the liver, one in a 46-year-old male which recurred 8 months after surgical resection and two in 53- and 41-year-old females. These cases were mostly older than previous reports of giant hemangioma of the liver. Clinical data of all three cases sugested hemangioma and surgical resection was performed. The first patient with gross examination showed 15×14×8 cm and the recurrent one showed 6 × 4 ×3 cm in size. The second patient was a 53-year-old female with gross examination showing 20 × 13 × 9 cm in size. The third case was a 41-year-old female with gross examination showing 22 × 16 × 9 cm in size. Diagnosis of cavernous hemangioma was made based on clinical and histopathological results. Each tumor had hemangioma-like vessels located far from the main tumor and in the resected edge. It is interesting that the recurrent case had shorter recurrence time than in the case reported by Zhu et al . 2