The management of abdominal neuroblastoma

✍ Scribed by C. Everett Koop; Louise Schnaufer

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1975
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 399 KB
• Volume: 35
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/1097-0142(197503)35:3+<905::aid-cncr2820350708>3.0.co;2-6

✦ Synopsis

Although survival of children with abdominal neuroblastoma seems at this time to bc unrelated to the therapeutic effort, a method of management according to the stage of disease has been developed. Seventy-three percent of patients have metastases at the time of diagnosis. Survival is best in children under 1 year of age. Survival by stage of disease drops progressively from 90% in Stage I disease to 2.4% in Stage IV disease. Irradiation therapy seems unrelated to survival in Stage I, 11, and IV disease, while chemotherapy has not been shown to alter survival rates in any stage. Surgical removal of the tumor is still the primary therapy; irradiation is of significant benefit in patients with Stage 111 disease. Cancer 35:905-909, 1975. EIJROBLASTOMA IS THE MOST COhlMON SOLID N malignant tumor of childhood;19 it accounts for about half of the neonatal malignant tumors.5.25 Jn spite of the interest in the management of this tumor because of its frequency and its rather unique behavior, and i n spite of the trial of several chemotherapeutic agents with and without irradiation therapy, the survival rate for neuroblastoma remains essentially unchanged i n the past 20 years.2. 23

If the lack of progress in the treatment of neuroblastoma in general is discouraging, the outlook for patients with abdominal neuroblastoma is dismal indeed. Patients with extraabdominal neuroblastomas have a higher survival rate than d o those with abdominal neuroblastoma.7~"~*~~~0 T h e overall survival in most series depends upon the mix of anatomical primary sites. In our previous reports'l314 the high survival of mediastinal neuroblastomas influenced the overall survival of 3676.

This report is focused on our experience