Historical background

Abstract

Visible abnormal vascular masses were the first congenital vascular malformations (CVM) reported in the literature. Probably the first report was that of Guido Guidi, personal physician of King Francis I of France in the XVI century. He described a young Florentine man with extremely dilated vessels of the scalp, which looked like enormous varices. He sent this patient to the famous surgeon Gabriele Falloppio who refused to operate on such a difficult case [1]. This case and several others were considered to represent abnormal dilated vessels because the concept of hemodynamics was not understood. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Milan.