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Pattern and outcome of neuroblastoma. A 10 year study
P Kusumakumary1, T V Ajithkumar, K Ratheesan
1Division of Pediatric Oncology and Radiation Oncology, Regional Cencer Center, Trivandrum, Kerala.
Objective:
To determine the clinical pattern and outcome of children with neuroblastoma.
Design:
Retrospective analysis.
Setting:
Hospital based information from the case sheets.
Subjects:
91 children with age upto 14 years treated in the Regional Cancer Center, Trivandrum.
Methods:
Clinical presentation, metastatic pattern and treatment outcome were analyzed.
Results:
Median age of the study group was 2.5 years with a male:female ratio of 1.6:1. Fifteen per cent children had early stage disease and 85% advanced disease. Five children with stage III and 22 with stage IV disease did not receive may active treatment. The remaining 64 children were evaluated for this analysis with a survival rate of 25%. Two of the four (50%) stage I, four of the six (83.3%) stage II, five of the 18 (27.7%) stage III, three of the 32 (9%) stage IV and two of the four (50%) stage IVs patients are long term survivors.
Conclusions:
Majority of the children (> 80%) presented with advanced disease and outcome remained poor. Only 27% of stage III and 9% of stage IV patients are long term survivors in our series. In future, approaches to detect disease at an early stage and aggressive therapeutic strategies in selected patients may improve survival.