Causes
The cause of hemangioma is currently unknown; however, several studies have suggested the importance of estrogen signaling in hemangioma proliferation. In 2007, a paper from the Stanford Children's Surgical Laboratory revealed that localized soft tissue hypoxia coupled with increased circulating estrogen after birth may be the stimulus. There is also a hypothesis presented by researchers at Harvard and the University of Arkansas that maternal placenta embolizes to the fetal dermis during gestation resulting in hemangiomagenesis. However, researchers at Duke University conducted genetic analyses of single-nucleotide polymorphism in hemangioma tissue compared to the mother's DNA that contradicted this hypothesis. More research is required in order to fully understand the explosive nature of hemangioma growth, which will hopefully yield targeted therapeutics to treat its most complicated presentations.
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