title: Mass screening for neuroblastoma and mortality in birth cohorts.
abstract: Mortality resulting from neuroblastoma in birth cohorts in both Sapporo City and the whole of Japan was investigated to evaluate the effects of a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) mass screening program, targeting on 6 month-old infants. In Sapporo City, the non-HPLC screened cohort showed no reduction in mortality at 4 years of age compared with the pre-screening cohort. However, the HPLC screened cohort showed a reduction of 69% in mortality compared with the pre-screening cohort. On a nation-wide scale, there was a significant decline in mortality for the non-HPLC screened cohort compared with the pre-screening cohort; for the HPLC screened cohort for 1989-1991, there was also a reduction in mortality for children younger than 2 years of age. The incidence of neuroblastoma at 1-4 years of age in the HPLC cohort in Sapporo City was about half that in the pre-screening cohort, along with and probably because of an increasing incidence among infants in the same cohort. Our findings suggest that HPLC screening may detect some poor-prognosis neuroblastoma cases at early stages, thus providing for more favorable therapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health, Sapporo Medical University, Hokkaido, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nishi
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Miyake
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hanai
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Takasugi
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor / Q000652:urine*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006719:Homovanillic Acid / Q000652:urine*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D007223:Infant; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods; D009447:Neuroblastoma / Q000401:mortality* / Q000652:urine; D015397:Program Evaluation; D016019:Survival Analysis; D015996:Survival Rate; D014642:Vanilmandelic Acid / Q000652:urine*
chemical_list: D014408:Biomarkers, Tumor; D014642:Vanilmandelic Acid; D006719:Homovanillic Acid