Quality of Life and Psychological Effects of Port-Wine Stain: A Review of Literature

Abstract

Introduction Port-wine stain (PWS) is a congenital malformation that does not resolve spontaneously and can cause a physiological or psychological burden to the patients. At present, most of the studies done on PWS are focused on the treatment rather than the quality of life and psychological effects of the disease. Material and Methods A comprehensive literature search was done in MEDLINE using PubMed database, Embase ® , and Cochrane. All observational studies were included in this review. Results A total of 17 relevant articles with 2,135 PWS patients were included in this review. There were 36 measurement tools used to assess the quality of life and the psychological effects among PWS patients. The results showed that patients with facial PWS had a significant negative effect on their quality of life and had also suffered from psychological disabilities. The PWS lesion tends to worsen with age and may cause further adaptation problems towards the social environment, especially in children. Conclusion Early treatment, psychological assistance, and patient support are the key management in improving the quality of life of patients with PWS. Quality of life must be regularly assessed together with the improvement of treatment.

Psychosocial implications of rare genetic skin diseases affecting appearance on daily life experiences, emotional state, self-perception and quality of life in adults: a systematic review

“…These body-hiding techniques have shown their benefits on QoL in other visible conditions as vitiligo [163,164], burn injuries [165,166], facial skin disorders (acne, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis) [167,168], infantile hemangiomas [169], and in post-surgical cancer treatment [170][171][172], which again demonstrates the impact of these conditions on body image [170,172]. Furthermore, in the case of PWS, having had an early birthmark resorption treatment (e.g., flash-lamp pulsed dye laser) has a positive effect on the subject's QoL [109]. Although many studies have shown the benefit of cosmetic camouflage in patients with skin disfigurement [173], another research has suggested that hiding any type of stigmatizing identity could have a negative impact on physical and psychological QoL [174].…”

“…1 for explanations). Before going any further, it is important to point out that we recorded three recently published literature reviews specifically dedicated to inherited ichthyosis [89] and PWS [109,110]; they included studies that focused on children and adolescents and also examined psychosocial intervention-based studies. As we cannot include these articles in our current review, we will consider their results in the discussion and see if their findings are consistent with ours.…”

Treating pediatric port‐wine stains without general anesthesia

“…7 Many parents therefore favor early treatment to reduce the psychosocial stress of their children, resulting from social phobia, anxiety, and shame. 8 One example is a patient of ours who would not allow himself to be photographed from the affected side throughout his childhood. As an adult he deliberately addressed the matter publicly to encourage early treatment of children with port-wine stains so that they would not experience the same sort of emotional difficulties as he had encountered because of stigmatization.…”

Feasibility study of quantifying size of port-wine stain (PWS) birthmarks using digital photos

“…Port-wine stains (PWS) birthmarks are a congenital disorder of low-flow vascular malformations of the skin, which appear at birth as pink to erythematous patches on the skin or mucous membranes [1]. The prevalence of congenital PWS is 0.3%, affecting approximately 25 million people worldwide [2]. Unlike other types of vascular birthmarks, the PWS lesion does not fade with age.…”