Validation and Transcultural Adaptation of Hemangiomas Severity Scale

Introduction: Infantile hemangiomas are the most common benign soft tissue tumors in pediatrics, with a general incidence of 3-10% of the population. The Hemangioma Severity Scale was formulated by Haggstrom et al 2012, to measure the severity of hemangiomas according to the identification of clinical variables, assigning morbidity values ​​associated with already published variables and in the clinical experience of experts on the subject. However, it has been designed and developed in the American population. Therefore, the objective of this study was to validate and translate the Hemangioma Severity Scale for its application in Mexican pediatric patients. Materials and methods: The hemangioma severity scale was applied by 2 expert pediatric dermatology subspecialists, and then the responses were compared using correlation indices by a statistician who was biased. Results: A coefficient was performed on the first item, an index of 0.714 was obtained. The following items obtained a 0.799 for the location, a 1 for the risk of structural abnormalities, 0.516 for complications, 0.298 for the item of pain and in the general risk and probability of deformation a kappa index of 0.670 was obtained. Conclusions: The application of the Hemangiomas Severity Scale in pediatric patients is a useful and reproducible tool with great clinical applicability in our population.