title: Can a patient with neuroblastoma be diagnosed by a single urine sample collected randomly?
abstract: We have observed that a fairly large amount of vanillylmandelic acid and homovanillic acid in urine samples taken randomly from patients with a tumor of about 10 g was less than the cutoff values and overlapped with the respective ranges of normal infants. Consequently, with only a single random urine sample there is a risk of overlooking a patient, especially in cases where the tumor is small. However, according to theoretical calculation, several random urine samples may enable us to discriminate a patient from a normal infant and can replace the 24-hour urine accumulation for 3 days which is currently performed for final judgement in the mass screening of neuroblastoma.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Sapporo Medical College, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nishi
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Miyake
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Takasugi
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hanai
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kawai
mesh_terms: D006719:Homovanillic Acid / Q000652:urine*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000652:urine; D011897:Random Allocation; D014642:Vanilmandelic Acid / Q000652:urine*
chemical_list: D014642:Vanilmandelic Acid; D006719:Homovanillic Acid