Neuroblastoma Treatments

Neuroblastoma is a tumor that arises from cells in the nervous system. This tumor often occurs in children under the age of five, including infants. About 2/3 of all neuroblastomas occur in the abdomen, forming in the adrenal nerve tissue. Swelling can also occur in the neck, chest, and back. Sometimes the tumor begins to develop before birth, and in such cases, it can detect using ultrasound.

In young children under one year old who have diagnosed with neuroblastoma, the prognosis is better, regardless of the disease’s degree, than in older children. Some of the smaller neuroblastomas in young children can spontaneously regress without any treatment. Your child must be correctly diagnosed and treated at the Oncology-Hematology Department, where doctors with neuroblastoma treatment work experience.

Treatment of neuroblastoma depends on the child’s age, the size of the tumor, its location, and spread, but above all, on the biology of the tumor cells. In general, the treatment applied:

• Surgical resection
• Usually chemotherapy
• Sometimes stem cell transplantation follows high-dose chemotherapy
• Sometimes radiation therapy
• Cis-retinoic acid for maintenance therapy in high-risk disease
• Immunotherapy

Surgical resection is essential for the low and intermediate-risk disease categories. It often postponed until adjuvant chemotherapy performed to improve the possibility of adequate surgical resection.

Chemotherapy usually needed for children with the moderate-risk disease. High-dose chemotherapy with stem cell transplant and cis-retinoic acid often used in high-risk children.

Tel Aviv Medical Center has been studying, diagnosing, treating neuroblastoma in children for many years. The department equipped with modern, expensive devices, high-quality equipment available only in a few clinics in the world. This allows experienced professionals to achieve tremendous success in the fight against cancer in children.