[Epidemiology of neuroblastoma].
From the Childhood Cancer Registry in Japan, incidence of neuroblastoma was 1 among 100,000-150,000 children under the age of 15 years, and 25% of them were under 1 year old. But, mass-screening for this tumor in infancy showed incidence of detection of 1:5,000 babies. Even if we presume that all of the tumor cases--if not screened with the risk of developing later--were detected in infancy, this is more than the expected incidence. To explain this, we postulated 4 patterns in the natural growth of this tumor. After the start of mass-screening, the number of the patients with this tumor in much earlier stage and younger age increased and this was the main cause of improvement of the results of treatment.
D000367:Age Factors; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007564:Japan; D007680:Kidney Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D009396:Wilms Tumor / Q000453:epidemiology*