The Effectiveness Of Propranolol In Treating Infantile Hemangiomas: A Meta-analysis

Background: Propranolol may have shown excellent results as a first-line therapy ininfantile hemangiomas (IHs) of all parts of the body, but this conclusion remainscontroversial. In an attempt to resolve this issue, we performed a meta-analysis.Methods: A search of the literature by PubMed, MEDLINE, Cochrane Librarydatabases and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) was performed toidentify studies which estimated the efficacy of propranolol therapy in infant withhemangiomas all parts of the body. The pooled odds ratio (OR) with95%confidenceintervals (CI) was assessed using a fixed-effects model.Results: Thirty-five studies involving324infantile hemangioma(IH) patients and248controls were retrieved and analyzed. The efficacy of propranolol is more than othertherapies in treating IHs(OR=9.67,95%CI:6.62-14.12, P<0.001). In stratified analysisby parts of hemangiomas, propranolol is a more effective treatment when compared tosteroids(OR=9.67,95%CI:6.61-14.15, P<0.001), vincristine(OR=9.00,95%CI:2.15-37.66, P=0.003) and laser(OR=9.00,95%CI:1.42-57.12, P=0.020) in treatingcutaneous IHs(OR=24.95,95%CI:9.48-65.64, P<0.001), periocular IHs(OR=9.39,95%CI:3.88-22.71, P<0.001), infantile airway hemangiomas(OR=20.91,95%CI:7.81-55.96, P<0.001) and infantile hepatic hemangiomas(OR=9.89,95%CI:1.20-81.54, P=0.033). Conclusion: The study provided a stronger evidence for propranolol as a first-linetherapy for infantile hemangiomas.