Surgical treatment of small-sized S3 arterio-venous malformations with neo-adjuvant and adjuvant bleomycin

Arteriovenous Malformations are complex and challenging entities, and their treatment is often tailored on the patient. Interstitial sclerosing treatment with bleomycin is promising especially in cases where the aesthetical and/or functional burden of surgical intervention would be impactful as in the S3 AVM according to the SECg classification.

We treated 15 patients presenting small (<10cm3) S3 arterio-venous malformations with 3 + 3 sessions of 15.000 IU of interstitial bleomycin. 9 patients presented moderate to good response to the first 3 sessions and thus surgical re-shaping was performed between the two cycles. US examination was done pre-treatment, before each session and every 3 months after the end of the protocol to assess the arterio-venous malformations.

Fifteen of the seventeen patients concluded the protocol. 9 patients underwent surgical re-shaping while 6 skipped it because of their excellent response to the first 3 bleomycin injections. Major improvement in terms of appearance and symptoms (pulsations, ulcerations, bleeding or pain) were always achieved. There was a 20% of minor complications.

The presented data are encouraging and seem to suggest that this may be a promising protocol to extend the use of bleomycin in arterio-venous malformations and reduce the impact of surgery.