Individualized dosing of oral propranolol for treatment of infantile hemangioma: a prospective study

INTRODUCTION: infantile hemangioma is the most common benign tumor in infancy. Currently, oral propranolol is the treatment of choice for infantile hemangioma, but there is no consensus when it comes to its recommended dosage for this condition. Hence this study was conducted to find out the appropriate dosage of oral propranolol for treatment of infantile hemangioma. METHODS: A prospective study was conducted on 25 patients with infantile hemangioma, who were treated with gradually increasing dose of propranolol starting from a lower dose of 1mg/kg/day. RESULTS: 17/22(76%) patients showed regression of the tumor at the dose of 1- 1.5 mg/kg/d. 5/22(24%) patients were unresponsive to the treatment with the lower dose and they did not respond even with the gradually escalated dose of 3-4 mg/kg/day. CONCLUSION: Propranolol in a lower dose of 1-1.5 mg/kg/day is safe and efficacious in the treatment of infantile hemangioma and the lesions which do not show initial response to the lower dose are unlikely to respond to the higher dose of 3-4 mg/kg/day.