JUSTIN C.K. DAVIS, M.D.: Hi. My name is Dr. Justin Davis. Today, I would like to tell you about a particular kind of cancer known as neuroblastoma. Now the good news is that neuroblastoma is rare and is only diagnosed in about 650 people in the United States per year. The bad news is that the people that are diagnosed are most often young children. It is most common in children ages five years and younger, and it is the most common kind of cancer that is diagnosed in babies. The good news is that if caught early and in young children, the cure rate is very high. Now, what exactly is a neuroblastoma? This is a kind of cell that develops on the neuro cells in certain parts of the body especially the neuro cells of the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system is a part of the nervous system that regulates automatic functions of the body like your heart rate or like breathing for example. So when you get neuroblastoma because it can affect many parts of the body and part of the nervous system, the symptoms may be variable. It is often difficult to describe the symptoms if you are a young child or a baby. The most common area that neuroblastoma arises from is in the adrenal glands. The adrenal glands are special glands; there are two of them in fact, that sit right on top of your kidneys on either side of your body. The treatment for neuroblastoma will usually include a combination of surgery, radiation therapy, and maybe chemotherapy. This will best be decided by an oncologist. Now neuroblastoma, while most common in very young children and babies, can occur in people at any age. How do you prevent this? Unfortunately, we do not know what causes neuroblastoma so it is difficulty or nearly impossible at this point in time to prevent it, but what you can do is have good prenatal care and regular checkups for your baby and child; this may detect signs of neuroblastoma right away. Also, if you notice that your young child or your baby is acting abnormally, maybe they are crying excessively and seem to be in pain and nothing is helping, or perhaps they are not eating properly or they're losing weight even though they should be gaining weight, anything that you may think is abnormal is always important to bring to the attention of a doctor. And remember, the sooner this is diagnosed and treated the better the cure rate is. The treatment for neuroblastoma depends upon the age of the person diagnosed as well as the stage or the location of the disease. Usually, the treatments may include surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. One other recent kind of treatment that is becoming more popular these days is a stem cell transplant that is when healthy cells that can turn into any kind of cell, are harvested from the body, and the rest of the cancer is eliminated and then these healthy cells are put back in to regenerate the cells.
