Use of dermal fat grafts for treating anetoderma with lipoatrophy following involution of hemangiomas.

Infantile hemangioma (IH) is a benign vascular tumor that gradually involutes over several years. Rapidly involuting congenital hemangioma (RICH) is the relatively rare congenital vascular tumor that is fully grown at birth and does not undergo postnatal growth and involutes during the first year. However, after involution of both IH and RICH, some have severe sequelae, such as redundant skin or conspicuous scarring, requiring additional treatment. We present the case of a 6-year-old girl with a concave deformity due to subcutaneous atrophy, skin darkening, and altered skin texture of her left zygomatic region following involution of a hemangioma. We successfully treated this patient by transferring a dermal fat graft. This technique can be beneficial for atrophic sequelae after regression of a hemangioma and is easy to perform and cosmetically effective.

Simple and easy surgical technique for infantile hemangiomas: intralesional excision and primary closure.

OBJECTIVE: Infantile hemangioma (IH) is a benign vascular tumor that gradually shrinks over several years. Involuting or involuted IHs usually retain their shape, however, and result in redundant skin or conspicuous scarring due to ulceration in the proliferating phase. We present a case series of 12 patients who underwent intralesional excision and primary closure for treatment of involuting or involuted IH. METHODS: Twelve patients (5 boys, 7 girls) underwent our treatment method for involuting or involuted IH. A blinded assessor evaluated clinical result of each patient. RESULTS: Surgical results were excellent in 4 patients, good in 6, and fair in 2. A small dog ear was prominent in 1 patient; nevertheless, all parents were satisfied with the results. CONCLUSIONS: Intralesional excision and primary closure for treatment of involuting or involuted IH is an easy and simple procedure that does not result in dog-ear formation or elongated residual scarring.

Use of synthetic serum-free medium for culture of human dermal fibroblasts to establish an experimental system similar to living dermis.

In this study, we sought to establish a defined experimental system for fibroblast growth similar to that of the living dermis. To this end, we evaluated the growth and biochemical characteristics of fibroblasts cultured with serum-free HFDM-1, a finely tuned synthetic medium for human fibroblast culture. Three culture conditions were used to grow fibroblasts obtained from primary culture: (1) culture with Dulbecco's modified Eagle medium (DMEM) plus 10 % fetal bovine serum (serum-supplemented DMEM), (2) culture with DMEM (serum-free DMEM), and (3) culture with HFDM-1 (HFDM-1), and fibroblast morphology, growth, collagen type I production, and lipid composition were analyzed. Fibroblasts grown in HFDM-1 maintained cell numbers at nearly 100 % from days 14 to 21 and produced more collagen type I than cells grown in serum-supplemented and serum-free DMEM. Arachidonic acid (20:4) and total polyunsaturated fatty acids were lower in cells grown in serum-free DMEM and HFDM-1 than in serum-supplemented DMEM. These results suggested that HFDM-1 recapitulated growth conditions in the dermis better than traditional, serum-supplemented DMEM. In addition, the controlled chemical composition of HFDM-1 eliminated a potential source of variability in cell culture conditions.