Objective.
To review the epidemiological evidence on neuroblastoma and to use it in the framework of a statistical model to assess the value of screening children for this disease at different ages. Procedure. A simple two-stage model of the disease is used to estimate the prevalence at screening from incidence and from the distribution of the length of the preclinical phase. Results. It is shown that screening at 6 months would anticipate the diagnosis for a maximum of 25 cases per million. Given the detection rate of the existing programs, it would imply a 50% overdiagnosis. Furthermore, if the case with an anticipated diagnosis had a survival rate of 85%, the reduction in mortality would be at most 20%, whatever the age at screening. To detect such a reduction would need several millions of children to be enrolled in a trial. Conclusions. Considering these results and the likely persistence of overdiagnosis when screening at 12 months, the epidemiological and statistical evidence plead against further research on neuroblastoma screening. Its efficacy can be evaluated with sufficient reliability from the present evidence: the likely small benefit on mortality does not compensate for the cost of overdiagnosis. Med.