Delayed surgery and bone marrow transplantation for widespread neuroblastoma

From 1983 to 1986, 21 patients with poor prognosis neuroblastoma were treated with bone marrow transplantation. This regimen included induction chemotherapy, delayed surgical resection, local irradiation, and intensive chemoradiotherapy followed by infusion of allogeneic or autologous marrow. This therapeutic approach resulted in a 57% long-term survival rate (follow-up: 14-48 months), which appears to be approximately three times superior to conventional chemotherapy in a comparable group of children. In addition, complete resection was possible in 11 of 17 patients operated on after induction therapy. Recurrence in the primary site after bone marrow transplantation occurred in only one of 18 evaluable patients. Thus, this approach almost always eradicates primary tumor in patients with neuroblastoma with advanced disease.