Kadish stage C olfactory neuroblastoma successfully treated by chemoradiotherapy: report of two cases

Olfactory neuroblastoma is an uncommon tumor. It is usually diagnosed at advanced stages. Most of the patients have an indolent clinical course with slow progression, late recurrence and relative infrequency of distant metastasis. Because of the rarity and lack of a randomized clinical trial of patients with olfactory neuroblastoma, there is no standard treatment for the disease. The survival period has increased as treatments have been improved since 1980. Conventional treatments mainly consist of surgery and/or radiotherapy. Chemotherapy was only administered to a few patients; however, it achieved good response. More clinical experience is needed to improve the treatment strategy in order to reduce the possibility of disease recurrence, and also for rescue therapy. We present 2 patients with Kadish C tumors treated using chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy. Both patients demonstrated rapid and excellent response to induction chemotherapy, and have been free of disease for more than 5 years and 2 years after treatment, respectively.