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01-03-2012 | Commentary

RICH depuis la lettre

Author: Derek Roebuck

Published in: Pediatric Radiology | Issue 3/2012

Excerpt

It has been recognised for at least 15 years that there is a category of soft-tissue haemangiomas that are fully grown at birth and involute rapidly without treatment [1]. The diagnostic term “rapidly involuting congenital haemangioma” (RICH¹) was first used 9 years ago [2], at which time it was known that this lesion occurs in the liver [3]. …

In English, the acronym RICH is usually pronounced riche in acknowledgement of the pioneering work of our francophone colleagues in this field. Most English speakers do not adopt a fully French pronunciation, however, because using a guttural rhotic for /r/ makes them sound unacceptably pretentious. Luckily for us, French speakers themselves are somewhat inconsistent in their pronunciation of this phoneme.

A French expression meaning “before it was described” (literally “before the letter”).

Literally translated, this means “the doctor is to be feared more than the illness”; in English, we might say “the cure is worse than the disease.”

This aphorism comes from Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694 –1778) and may be translated as “the art of medicine consists of distracting the patient while nature treats the disease.”

Martinez-Perez D, Fein NA, Boon LM et al (1995) Not all hemangiomas look like strawberries: uncommon presentations of the most common tumor of infancy. Pediatr Dermatol 12:1–6PubMedCrossRef

Berenguer B, Mulliken JB, Enjolras O et al (2003) Rapidly involuting congenital hemangioma: clinical and histopathologic features. Pediatr Dev Pathol 6:495–510PubMedCrossRef

Paltiel HL, Burrows PE, Kozakewich HP et al (2004) Solitary infantile liver hemangioma: a distinct clinicopathologic entity [abstract]. Pediatr Radiol 34:S37

Franchi-Abella S, Gorincour G, Avni F et al (2012) Hepatic haemangioma—prenatal imaging findings, complications and perinatal outcome in a case series. Pediatr Radiol 42. doi:10.1007/s00247-011-2214-0

Roebuck DJ, Sebire NJ, Lehmann ED et al (2012) Rapidly-involuting congenital haemangioma (RICH) of the liver. Pediatr Radiol 42 (in press)

Makin E, Davenport M (2010) Fetal and neonatal liver tumours. Early Hum Dev 86:637–642PubMedCrossRef

Moon SB, Kwon HJ, Park KW et al (2009) Clinical experience with infantile hepatic hemangioendothelioma. World J Surg 33:597–602PubMedCrossRef

Zhang Z, Chen HJ, Yang WJ et al (2010) Infantile hepatic hemangioendothelioma: a clinicopathologic study in a Chinese population. World J Gastroenterol 16:4549–4557PubMedCrossRef

Kim TJ, Lee YS, Song YS et al (2010) Infantile hemangioendothelioma with elevated serum alpha fetoprotein: report of 2 cases with immunohistochemical analysis. Hum Pathol 41:763–767PubMedCrossRef

10.

Grabhorn E, Richter A, Fischer L et al (2009) Neonates with severe infantile hepatic hemangioendothelioma: limitations of liver transplantation. Pediatr Transplant 13:560–564PubMedCrossRef

11.

Dickie B, Dasgupta R, Nair R et al (2009) Spectrum of hepatic hemangiomas: management and outcome. J Pediatr Surg 44:125–133PubMedCrossRef

12.

Draper H, Diamond IR, Temple M et al (2008) Multimodal management of endangering hepatic hemangioma: impact on transplant avoidance: a descriptive case series. J Pediatr Surg 43:120–125, discussion 126PubMedCrossRef

13.

Zenzen W, Perez-Atayde AR, Elisofon SA et al (2009) Hepatic failure in a rapidly involuting congenital hemangioma of the liver: failure of embolotherapy. Pediatr Radiol 39:1118–1123PubMedCrossRef

14.

Markiewicz-Kijewska M, Kasprzyk W, Broniszczak D et al (2009) Hemodynamic failure as an indication to urgent liver transplantation in infants with giant hepatic hemangiomas or vascular malformations—report of four cases. Pediatr Transplant 13:906–912PubMedCrossRef

Title: RICH depuis la lettre
Author: Derek Roebuck
Publication date: 01-03-2012
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
Published in: Pediatric Radiology / Issue 3/2012
Print ISSN: 0301-0449
Electronic ISSN: 1432-1998
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00247-011-2317-7

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