Reply:

I am thankful for the opportunity to respond to the letter of Orbach et al regarding “Spinal Epidural Hemangiomas: Various Types of MR Imaging Features with Histopathologic Correlation.”¹ They pointed out the confusion in terminology with regard to vascular malformation. As they stated, the binary classification of vascular anomaly into vascular tumor and malformation is rational in the biologic and clinical sense, and venous hemangioma is considered by most as a malformation, yet it has been commonly used as a synonym of venous malformation.^2–4 We applied the term “arteriovenous and venous hemangioma” in our article only as a synonym for arteriovenous and venous malformation, similar to the use in previous reports and textbooks, including the WHO classification,⁴ and we did not intend to say that it represented a real hemangioma such as an infantile hemangioma.

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