Clinical strategies for the treatment of neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma is the most common solid extracranial tumour in childhood. In spite of intensive efforts of clinicians and scientists the prognosis for advanced disease is still poor. This paper presents a short review of the state-of-the-art in conventional treatment including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. This is followed by a review of the treatment attempts with high dose chemotherapy followed by autologous bone marrow or stem cell transplantation. One of the main problems with this approach is the contaminating tumour cells. Finally the various immunotherapeutic strategies are summarised which are used to remove minimal residual disease. Later, our new approach, combining various treatment modalities, is described.