Pulsed dye laser therapy for infantile hemangiomas: a systemic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND Infantile hemangiomas (IH) are common pediatric tumors. This meta-analysis was performed to review the therapeutic efficacy and safety of pulsed dye laser (PDL) in the treatment of IH. METHODS Seven databases were searched, including PubMed, OvidSP, Karger, Elsevier, EMBASE, Web of Science and Wiley Online Library. The review collected the characteristics of year of publication, hemangiomas cases, prior treatment, laser parameters, adverse side, pretreatment symptom, and number of response from all articles. RESULTS A total of 1580 studies were identified, the first round search retrieved 39 articles met inclusion criteria. Of those, only 13 articles with 1529 hemangiomas were included in the meta-analysis. This meta-analysis demonstrated an overall resolution rate of 89.1% with 6.28% incidence of adverse effect. CONCLUSION PDL may be the effective modality to decrease the proliferative phase and accelerate rates of involution and resolution with few adverse events.