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Pattern and outcome of neuroblastoma. A 10 year study.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the clinical pattern and outcome of children with neuroblastoma.


DESIGN
Retrospective analysis.


SETTING
Hospital based information from the case sheets.


SUBJECTS
91 children with age upto 14 years treated in the Regional Cancer Center, Trivandrum.


METHODS
Clinical presentation, metastatic pattern and treatment outcome were analyzed.


RESULTS
Median age of the study group was 2.5 years with a male:female ratio of 1.6:1. Fifteen per cent children had early stage disease and 85% advanced disease. Five children with stage III and 22 with stage IV disease did not receive may active treatment. The remaining 64 children were evaluated for this analysis with a survival rate of 25%. Two of the four (50%) stage I, four of the six (83.3%) stage II, five of the 18 (27.7%) stage III, three of the 32 (9%) stage IV and two of the four (50%) stage IVs patients are long term survivors.


CONCLUSIONS
Majority of the children (> 80%) presented with advanced disease and outcome remained poor. Only 27% of stage III and 9% of stage IV patients are long term survivors in our series. In future, approaches to detect disease at an early stage and aggressive therapeutic strategies in selected patients may improve survival.