[Grading procedures for neuroblastoma (author's transl)]

Various procedures of practical significance for grading neuroblastoma are described. The comparability of the grading procedures was studied on the basis of a series of 75 cases of neuroblastoma. When the grading procedure of Hughes et al. was applied to the material collected at the Childhood Tumor Registry in Kiel, the proportions of the various grades of malignancy agreed with the data on the collection in Manchester. More than 50% of the cases of neuroblastoma were undifferentiated, corresponding to grade III. An anaplastic type of neuroblastoma is also described. When applying grading procedures, one has to take the possible variations in the histologic picture of neuroblastoma into consideration.