Neuroblastoma - Facts about this cancer
(retrieved on-line from OncoLink, University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center)

 • Neuroblastoma is a malignant solid tumor that arises from the peripheral nervous system. It is one of the most aggressive of childhood cancers.

• It is the second most common type of solid cancer seen in children.

• Between 500 hundred to 1,000 new cases are diagnosed each year in the United States.

• Eighty-five percent are less than six years old at the time of diagnosis; 50 percent are under age two. It is often present at birth but usually is not detected until later.

• The cause of neuroblastoma is unclear. Some researchers believe that a tendency to develop neuroblastoma runs in certain families.

• Forty percent of patients diagnosed with neuroblastoma can be cured with surgery that is often followed by radiation and/or chemotheraphy. The remaining 60 percent have high risk tumors that are rarely cured by conventional chemotherapy or radiation. High dose chemotheraphy, with or without radiation, followed by a bone marrow transplant produces long-term disease free survival in 20 to 40 percent of patients with high risk disease.

• There are four stages of neuroblastoma:

Stage I (Localized resectable) - The cancer is confined to the site of origin, there is no evidence of spread, and the cancer can be surgically removed.

Stage II (Localized unresectable) - The cancer is confined to the site of origin but the cancer cannot be completely removed surgically.

Stage III (Regional) - The cancer has extended beyond the site of origin to regional lymph nodes and/or surrounding organs or tissues but has not spread to distant parts of the body.

Stage IV (Disseminated) - The tumor cells have metastasized or infiltrated the bones, bone marrow, liver or other organs distant from the original site of the tumor.

• Patients with high risk disease typically undergo four to six months of “induction” chemotheraphy, with or without radiation, to reduce the size of the tumor and halt the spread of the disease. The tumor may be surgically removed prior to chemotherapy/radiation or, if it is very large, after chemotherapy/radiation treatments. A patient may then undergo very high dose chemotherapy and radiation treatments called marrow ablative chemotherapy and radiation, followed by an infusion or transplant of bone marrow or peripheral stem cells.

• “Between 750 and 1,000 children with advanced neuroblastoma have undergone high dose chemotherapy and a BMT (bone marrow transplant) worldwide over the past 17 years,” according to John Graham-Pole, MD, University of Florida, Department of Pediatrics.

 For further information, see OncoLink.