Improvement in prognosis of neuroblastoma through mass population screening.
Since April 1981, the city of Sapporo, Japan, has conducted a mass screening program to measure urinary vanillylmandelic acid and homovanillylic acid using high-performance liquid chromatography. This program was expanded to the entire island of Hokkaido in October 1987. Mass screening proved beneficial, resulting in an increase in patients diagnosed with neuroblastoma under 1 year of age from 17% to 66%, an increase in stage I cases from 9% to 26%, an increase in stage III cases from 9% to 32%, and an increase in the tumor resectability rate from 15.1% to 58%. These improvements raised the 5-year survival rate for neuroblastoma from 23% to 66.7%. An additional study of these mass screening cases using Shimada's classification showed a wide range of histopathological distribution, and it demonstrated the usefulness of such a program in identifying the tumors most in need of early treatment.
Naito
H
H
Department of Surgery, Sapporo National Hospital, Japan.
Sasaki
M
M
Yamashiro
K
K
Takeda
T
T
Takasugi
N
N
Uchino
J
J
Hata
Y
Y
D000310:Adrenal Gland Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011379:Prognosis; D012186:Retroperitoneal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology; D015996:Survival Rate