Abstract
Purpose :
Vascular lesions and malformations of the orbit are a benign but important group of space occupying lesions in the population. In the literature, the incidence of vascular lesions is reported as 13-25% of all orbital tumors with the most common being capillary hemangiomas in children and cavernous hemangiomas in adults. Our goal was to compare the incidence of biopsy confirmed vascular tumors reported in the literature to those at our academic institution and to review the demographics and clinical presentation.
Methods :
A retrospective, descriptive, chart review was performed after IRB approval. All biopsied/surgically removed orbital lesions treated in our department between 2010 and 2015 were identified by surgical CPT codes. Those patients with vascular tumors were then selected for our study. In each case gender and age of the patients, pathological diagnosis, number of reinterventions and laterality were registered.
Results :
Two hundred and one biopsied confirmed orbital tumors were identified over a 5-year period. Sixteen cases were identified as vascular tumors constituting 8% of all orbital tumors in this review. The age ranged from 2-65 years old with a median age of 43. The majority (75%) of all vascular tumors were women. The most common presenting complaint was proptosis (56%). The breakdown of the vascular tumors includes: 6 cavernous hemangiomas (37.5%), 2 lymphangiomas (12/5%), 2 solitary fibrous tumors (12.5%), 2 arteriovenous malformations (12.5%), 1 hemangiopericytoma (6.25%), 1 orbital varix (6.25%), 1 capillary hemangioma (6.5%) and 1 Masson's vegetant intravascular hemangioendothelioma (6.25%). The two most common reasons for surgical intervention were diplopia (31%) and optic nerve compression (31%).
Conclusions :
Although our study shows that the incidence of vascular tumors is lower than the number reported in the literature, this may be related to the broad and diverse patient population seen at a referral center. It is possible that common tumors are managed in the community or observed for a longer period of time due to their charaterization as benign tumors.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.