Psychological Impact of Cutaneous Congenital Vascular Lesions

Abstract

Vascular lesions are abnormalities of vascular elements that appear at birth or in infancy. Cutaneous congenital vascular lesions are the most common pediatric birthmarks and can be divided into two different categories: hemangiomas and vascular malformations. Hemangiomas tend to involute, as the child grows older while other vascular malformations tend to persist. Congenital vascular lesions are found most commonly on the head and neck and can be isolated or part of a congenital syndrome such as Klippel-Trenaunay syndrome, Sturge-Weber syndrome and others. Vascular lesions, especially on exposed sites, can cause significant psychological distress for patients and family members.

Psychological comorbidities and compliance to interventional treatment of patients with cutaneous vascular malformations

“…Our rates are higher than what is described in the literature. 21,22 We hypothesize the relatively higher rates of psychological comorbidities in our study might be due to the fact that the patients were encouraged to describe their psychological complaints on each visit, and due to the lack of dedicated specialized psychological support services at our institution for this patient population. The most common complaint we found was fear of negative appearance, followed by dissatisfaction with appearance and low self-esteem.…”