Neonatal neuroblastoma needs the aggressive treatment?

Routine antenatal ultrasound scans increased the detection of the neuroblastoma (NB) in neonates. We reviewed the treatment outcome and clinical presentation of neonatal NB.

We included patients who had pathologically confirmed NB presented within 28 days after birth from January 1999 to December 2010.

There were 17 patients (8 females and 9 males), which consist of 16 % of total NB cases of children in our institution. Nine were followed from prenatal period as an abdominal mass and eight were presented postnatally (5 abdominal distensions, 2 tachypnea, and 1 persistent jaundice). The primary lesion was located in adrenal gland in ten patients, retroperitoneum in four, and posterior mediastinum in three. The tumor size was median 4.1 cm (range, 3-7). The stage of the patients were as follows: stage 1 in six, stage 2 in one, stage 3 in three, stage 4S in five, and stage 4 in two. Six patients were in the low-risk group, seven were intermediate-risk group, and four were high-risk group. Thirteen showed favorable histology among 15 specimens. Five patients (29.4 %) showed MYCN amplification. The median follow-up period was 78.4 months (range, 17.4-138.6). Fifteen of 17 (88.2 %) are alive without evidence of recurrences and two patients of stage 4S with MYCN amplification in high-risk group died.

The overall survival of neonatal NB is 88.2 %, but we observed a high ratio of stage 4 and stage 4S tumors and MYCN amplification. We suggested that early treatment might be better for neonatal NB more than 3 cm in size. Aggressive treatment for neonatal NB could bring more favorable outcome.