Use of a test diet in screening for neuroblastoma reduces false-positives attributable to food intake.
We attempted to reduce false-positives during screening for neuroblastoma using a qualitative urine test by introducing a test diet without foodstuffs known to cause false-positive results. In preliminary in-vivo experiments, intake of contra-indicated foods such as orange juice or banana was shown to result in high percentages of false-positive results several hours after food intake. False-positive results were obtained even after 24 hours among breast-fed infants whose mothers received orange juice. In a controlled field trial the false-positive rate was reduced to 2.84% among 540 infants taking the test diet compared with 5.05% among 9,844 control infants following conventional guidance on contra-indicated foods (p less than 0.05). For comparison, a questionnaire survey of nationwide screening in Japan in 1987 revealed that 66% of the screening centres employed qualitative urine tests, either a Spot or Dip method. False-positive rates, including those due to inappropriate urine collection, ranged from 0.4% to 33.7% (mean 7.1%). Rates ranged from 0.2% to 18.7% (mean 3.4%) in the remaining 34% of screening centres employing a quantitative method with high performance liquid chromatography.
Saito
T
T
Division of Environmental Epidemiology, National Children's Medical Research Centre, Tokyo, Japan.
Nikkawa
T
T
Usugane
T
T
Okamoto
T
T
Komiya
H
H
D001942:Breast Feeding; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects; D005189:False Positive Reactions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007564:Japan; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D009035:Mothers; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000175:diagnosis*