Cherry hemangioma
| Cherry angioma | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| A cherry angioma. | |
| Classification and external resources | |
| Specialty | cardiology |
| ICD-9-CM | 448.1 |
| DiseasesDB | 30744 |
| MedlinePlus | 001441 |
| eMedicine | derm/73 |
Cherry angiomas, also known as Campbell De Morgan spots or senile angiomas, are cherry redpapules on the skin containing an abnormal proliferation of blood vessels. They are the most common kind of angioma. They are called Campbell de Morgan spots after the nineteenth-century British surgeon Campbell De Morgan, who first noted and described them.
The frequency of cherry angiomas increases with age.
Cherry angiomas are made up of clusters of capillaries at the surface of the skin, forming a small round dome ("papule"), which may be flat topped. They range in colour from bright red to purple. When they first develop, they may be only a tenth of a millimeter in diameter and almost flat, appearing as small red dots. However, they then usually grow to about one or two millimeters across, and sometimes to a centimeter or more in diameter. As they grow larger, they tend to expand in thickness, and may take on the raised and rounded shape of a dome. Multiple adjoining angiomas are said to form a polypoid angioma. Because the blood vessels comprising an angioma are so close to the skin's surface, cherry angiomas may bleed profusely if they are injured.
One study found that the majority of capillaries in cherry hemangiomas are fenestrated because of staining for carbonic anhydrase activity.
Cherry angiomas appear spontaneously in many people in middle age but can also, less commonly, occur in young people. They can also occur in an aggressive eruptive manner in any age. The underlying cause for the development of cherry angiomas is not understood.
Findings suggest that cherry angioma may occur through two different mechanisms: angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels from pre-existing vessels), and vasculogenesis (the formation of totally new vessels, which usually occurs during embryonic and fetal development).
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