title: N-myc oncogene and urinary catecholamines in children with neuroblastoma.
abstract: This paper reports the analysis of N-myc amplification, urinary vanillylmandelic acid (VMA), and norepinephrine (NE) excretion and survival in 22 children with neuroblastoma and 7 with ganglio-neuroblastoma. Five patients had N-myc amplification (from 30 to more than 200 copies), all of whom had advanced-stage disease. The urinary excretion of VMA was normal in all of them, only one showed increased NE excretion. All patients with stage C-D disease and one copy of N-myc had increased VMA urinary excretion and increased (9/14) or normal (5/14) NE urinary excretion. All patients with stage A or B disease had one copy of N-myc. Half of them showed increased VMA urinary levels, while only 3/10 showed increased NE urinary values. Comparison of cumulative survival curves in relation to N-myc amplification and to VMA and NE urinary excretion showed a clear parallelism. Amplification of N-myc corresponded to normal VMA and NE urinary excretion, and was associated with the worst prognosis (P < 0.01), while increased VMA and/or NE excretion was found in patients with only one copy of N-myc.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Investigaciones Endocrinológicas, Hospital de Niños R. Gutiérrez, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barontini
authors.forename: M I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Gutiérrez
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Levin
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Mur
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Diez
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004273:DNA, Neoplasm / Q000032:analysis; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005729:Ganglioneuroma / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000652:urine*; D005784:Gene Amplification; D016259:Genes, myc / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000235:genetics* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000652:urine*; D009638:Norepinephrine / Q000652:urine*; D011379:Prognosis; D015996:Survival Rate; D014642:Vanilmandelic Acid / Q000652:urine*
chemical_list: D004273:DNA, Neoplasm; D014642:Vanilmandelic Acid; D009638:Norepinephrine