What Does Hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia (HHT) Look Like?
A child with HHT, also known as Osler-Weber-Rendu Syndrome, tends to form blood vessels that lack the capillaries between an artery and vein. Capillaries are very small blood vessels where arteries drop off their oxygen and then flow into veins (large blood vessels without oxygen). In this condition, without capillaries, arterial blood under high pressure flows directly into a vein. This pressure tends to rupture the vessels and result in bleeding. Telangiectases often occur at the surface of the body, such as the skin and the mucous membrane that lines the nose. When HHTs involve larger blood vessels they can be found inside the body and are called arteriovenous malformations (AVMs).
