TUMORS of the liver are exceedingly uncommon in infancy and childhood. When such tumors are found, they are most likely to represent a primary malignant growth. Cavernous hemangiomas of the liver in infancy and childhood, presenting as a primary hepatic tumor, are extremely rare.
Shumacker,1 in 1942, in a thorough review of the literature, was able to find 67 operative cases of hemangiomas of the liver. Of these, only three occurred in the pediatric age group. Two of them occurred in newborn infants; one was a 7-day-old infant reported by Hammer,* and the other, only 3 days of age, was reported by Kissinger and co-workers.2 Both these infants suffered a spontaneous hemorrhage, with death. The other was a 6-year-old girl3 who had a large cavernous hemangioma of the liver resected but died approximately one month postoperatively, with ascites and respiratory failure.
Hendricks, in 1948,4 reported a