The specialists in the Vascular Anomalies Center (VAC) at Boston Children's Hospital are available to consult with physicians seeking information about the entire spectrum of vascular anomalies, or wishing to discuss the diagnosis and management of a specific patient. The staff works collaboratively with referring physicians, involving them in decisions about their patient's care, maintaining regular communication, and whenever feasible providing referrals to specialists close to the patient's home.
Physicians may contact the Vascular Anomalies Center at vascular@childrens.harvard.edu to request a consultation.
ISSVA Classification of Vascular Anomalies
In 2014, the International Society for the Study of Vascular Anomalies (ISSVA) released a standardized nomenclature guide for classifying vascular anomalies. This guide represents the field's consensus for defining and naming the known vascular anomalies
VAC conference
The Vascular Anomalies Center's team of physicians — drawn from over 17 different medical and surgical specialties at Boston Children's — meets each week to review medical histories, photographs, radiographic images, and pathology slides sent in by referring physicians or families from across the United States and around the globe.
Based on this information, the team provides diagnoses and treatment recommendations, and answers specific questions posed to them by physicians and families, without the patient having to travel to Boston. In some cases, we may be able to recommend treatments that can be done locally. In other cases, we may recommend families travel to Boston for further evaluation or treatments that are best done by an experienced vascular anomalies center.
The large volume of patients seen and reviewed each year in the VAC conference contributes to our team's expertise and familiarity with the wide spectrum of vascular anomalies, from common infantile hemangiomas to very rare malformations affecting multiple body systems, and our ability to recognize patterns and conditions others may not be familiar with. We can recommend the latest treatment options to treat the child’s symptoms.
In addition, the VAC conference serves as a forum for interdisciplinary collaboration and dissemination of information among clinicians and researchers that lead to new insights that may allow us to identify a new condition or a new therapy for treating a known condition.
To submit a case for review in conference, please: