title: Abdominal, retroperitoneal and sacrococcygeal tumours of the newborn and the very young infant. Report from the Kiel Paediatric Tumour Registry.
abstract: We examined 226 abdominal, retroperitoneal and sacrococcygeal tumours in newborns and infants aged 6 months or less. Most frequent were neuroblastomas (n = 83) followed by germ cell tumours (n = 76), 37 of which were immature and 32 were mature teratomas. Fully malignant germ cell tumours and malignant germ cell tumour components were much rarer in this age group (9.2%) than in older children (58.1%). The majority of germ cell tumours were localized in the sacrococcygeal region (72.4%). Next in frequency were tumours of the kidney (n = 54), including 28 congenital mesoblastic nephromas. In contrast to children over 6 months of age, kidney tumours were frequently low grade malignant with a favourable prognosis. Among liver tumours there were 19 infantile haemangioendotheliomas and 9 hepatoblastomas. By contrast, at ages 7-24 months hepatoblastomas (n = 28) were much more frequent than haemangioendotheliomas (n = 2). Tumours in the newborn and very young infant differ from those in older children in many respects: (1) the relative frequency; (2) localization; (3) distribution of histological types; (4) degree of differentiation, often associated with a tendency toward maturation but occasionally also with increasing malignancy; and (5) prognosis, which is comparatively favourable.
authors.affiliation: Abteilung Paidopathologie, Universität, Kiel, Federal Republic of Germany.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Harms
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Leuschner
mesh_terms: D000008:Abdominal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005860:Germany, West; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007680:Kidney Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D012042:Registries; D012186:Retroperitoneal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology*; D012445:Sacrococcygeal Region; D013724:Teratoma / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D009396:Wilms Tumor / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology