Illinois Medicine

grateful patient by Alice Patenaude Brightening T 14 | WINTER 2012 Collaboration and rare benign tumor ODAY, ALYRA FALLON IS A TYPICAL 3-YEAR-OLD—a fiery redhead who is outgoing and inquisitive. But shortly after her daughter was born, Alyra's mom, Heather, noticed some- thing out of the ordinary—a shadow across Alyra's face. "At first, my pediatrician thought it was just bruising, because Alyra was over nine pounds when she was born," says Heather Fallon. But the shadow quickly became a hemangioma, a benign tumor composed of blood vessels that spread across her bottom right lip and the entire right side of her face, surrounding her eye. A tiny ulceration on her lip quickly became a prominent wound. That's when Fallon's doctor realized that it was something more serious—and suggested they go to the University of Illinois Hospital & Health Sciences System for immediate evaluation and treatment. Alyra was only a week old when the Fallons met Mary Lou Schmidt, MD, head of the division of pediatric hematology/oncology and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Schmidt attributed Alyra's symptoms to PHACES, an uncommon association between large infantile hemangiomas and birth anomalies of the brain, heart, eyes, skin and/or arteries. PHACES is an acronym that stands for the parts of the body it often impacts with abnormali- ties: Posterior fossa, Hemangiomas, Arterial, Cardi- ac, Eye and Sternal. Alyra is one of only about 500 known cases of PHACES syndrome. The right side of Alyra's cerebellum was filled with fluid instead of brain tissue and she had abnormally formed blood vessels in her head and neck, while her right eye was compressed due to the rapidly growing hemangioma. Schmidt, who's on staff at the Children's Hospital of University of Illinois, which began accepting patients last June, collaborated with Beth Drolet, MD, a dermatologist and international PHOTO: MIKE MCCAFREY

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