Background:

Airway hemangiomas are congenital neoplasms of low incidence. Its clinical presentation consists of obstruction of the upper airway with progressive dyspnea and stridor and the life of the patient at risk. Infantile hemangiomas have an incidence at birth of 2%, increasing to 9% at 12 months of life. Almost 60% of childhood hemangiomas affect the head and neck region. However, localization in the upper airway is not as frequent and it is only reported in 1.8% of patients with cutaneous hemangiomas. The traditional treatment of laryngeal hemangiomas has been the administration of systemic corticosteroids for long periods, endolaryngeal surgery with CO2 laser, open surgery, tracheostomy or, recently, oral propranolol.

Case report:

Five cases of subglottic hemangioma treated with systemic propranolol are presented. The therapeutic time of response with the satisfactory control of obstructive symptoms and assurance of the airway was evaluated. In these cases, propranolol was shown to be an effective and safe option for the treatment of laryngeal hemangiomas with a therapeutic response time of 48 to 72 hours.

Conclusions:

In recent years, the treatment with oral propranolol has become the first therapeutic option due to its high efficacy and safety profile.