The New England journal of medicine
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Letter Case Reports
Transplantation of kidneys from a donor with carbon monoxide poisoning.
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Case Reports Clinical Trial
Interferon alfa-2a therapy for life-threatening hemangiomas of infancy.
Most hemangiomas are small, harmless birthmarks that appear soon after birth, proliferate for 8 to 18 months, and then slowly regress over the next 5 to 8 years, leaving normal or slightly blemished skin. In rare cases, hemangiomas can endanger vital structures, with a mortality of up to 60 percent. About a third of these life-threatening hemangiomas respond to treatment with corticosteroids, but for the others there is no safe and effective treatment. We evaluated the effects of daily subcutaneous injections of interferon alfa-2a (up to 3 million units per square meter of body-surface area) in 20 neonates and infants with life-threatening or vision-threatening hemangiomas that failed to respond to corticosteroid therapy. ⋯ Interferon alfa-2a appears to induce the early regression of life-threatening corticosteroid-resistant hemangiomas of infancy.