Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staff
Most people don't need treatment
If your liver hemangioma is small and doesn't cause any signs or symptoms, you won't need treatment. While you may be worried about leaving a liver mass untreated, in most cases a liver hemangioma will never grow and will never cause problems.
Your doctor may schedule follow-up exams to check your liver hemangioma periodically for growth.
Treatment for liver hemangioma that causes signs and symptoms
If a liver hemangioma grows large enough to push on adjacent structures in your abdomen, it can cause signs and symptoms and may signal that you need treatment. Liver hemangioma treatment depends on your individual situation, such as the location and size of the hemangioma, whether you have more than one hemangioma, your overall health and your preferences.
Treatment options may include:
- Surgery to remove the liver hemangioma. If the hemangioma can be easily separated from the liver, your doctor may recommend surgery to remove the mass.
- Surgery to remove part of the liver, including the hemangioma. In some cases, surgeons may need to remove a section of your liver along with the hemangioma.
- Procedures to stop blood flow to the hemangioma. Your surgeon may recommend stopping blood flow through the main artery to the hemangioma. Blood flow can be stopped by tying off the artery (hepatic artery ligation) or injecting medication into the artery to block it (arterial embolization). Without a blood supply, the mass may stop growing or shrink. The healthy liver tissue is unharmed, though, because it can draw blood from other nearby vessels.
- Liver transplant surgery. In very rare situations, if you have a very large hemangioma or multiple hemangiomas that can't be treated by other means, your doctor may recommend surgery to remove your liver and replace it with a liver from a donor.
- Radiation therapy. Radiation therapy uses powerful energy beams, such as X-rays, to damage the cells of the hemangioma.
- Feldman M, et al. Sleisenger & Fordtran's Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis, Management. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2006. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/109849475-3/0/1389/0.html. Accessed Nov. 11, 2008.
- Curry MP, et al. Hepatic hemangioma. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed Nov. 11, 2008.
- Choi BY, et al. The diagnosis and management of benign hepatic tumors. Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology. 2005;39:401.
- Blonski W, et al. Evaluation of nonmalignant liver masses. Current Gastroenterology Reports. 2006;8:38.
- Liver health tips. American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. http://www.aasld.org/yourliver/Pages/LiverHealthTips.aspx. Accessed Nov. 12, 2008.
