Demonstrated efficacy of new antihemangioma treatment

An international clinical trial has demonstrated the efficacy of a new treatment against haemangioma, one of the most common skin diseases among children. It is characterised by an abnormal proliferation of blood vessels which produce a mark on the skin. In most cases, this mark disappears spontaneously and without any consequences, but a small percentage of them can cause severe problems.
 
According to the clinical trial, in which 70 babies (aged one to five months) from Catalonia participated, a six-month treatment with propranolol was sufficient to solve the majority of cases.
 
Circumstances have it that Dr Baselga's article coincide with three other scientific papers prepared by Catalan authors and published in the latest edition of The New England Journal of Medicine, the world's most prestigious medical journal, as the newspaper La Vanguardia cited last week in an article. The other two authors are Pedro Alonso, who conducted a research on tropical medicine, and Josep Baselga, whose research focused on breast cancer. Doctor Josep Baselga founded the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) when he was professor at the UAB and currently is the director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston.
 
Original article:
"A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Oral Propranolol in Infantile Hemangioma." N Engl J Med 2015; 372:735-746 February 19, 2015DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1404710