At some basic level, we all have an underlying fear of facing cancer in any form, from the identification of abnormal symptoms to the dreaded diagnosis of cancer, and then dealing with cancer treatments. Well, imagine being a mere child and facing the prospect of that same set of steps with Neuroblastoma.

Neuroblastoma stage 4 is the most advanced stage of the neuroblastoma cancer. It means that the disease has spread to other areas of the body, like the liver or bone marrow, and the prognosis is not always good.

If your child has been diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, keep reading for more information about the disease, survival rates, risk factors, and common treatments.

About Neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma is the most common form of cancer in infants and the third most typical cancer for children. However, there are only 650 cases of the disease diagnosed each year in the United States. Ninety percent of those cases are discovered in children under the age of 7.

About 30% of all neuroblastoma cases begin in the adrenal glands, another 30% start in the ganglia of the abdomen’s sympathetic nervous system, and the majority of the remainder begin in the neck’s sympathetic ganglia, chest or pelvis.

Survival Rates

The five-year survival rate for infants (under the age of 1) is 83%, while it is 55% for children between the ages of 1 to 4, and 40% for older children.

But children with stage 4 neuroblastoma normally have much lower survival rates. They hover between 50% and 80% for infants (under a year old) and drop to 15% for children over the age of 1.

Treatment for Neuroblastoma Stage 4

Children at high risk, such as those diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, often require very intensive chemotherapy and possibly surgery, and stem cell transplants for marrow support. First, surgery is used to remove the tumor, but then chemotherapy must be employed for the remainder of the spread cancer cells.

In many cases of stage 4 neuroblastoma, chemotherapy is the only option after surgery to eradicate all the cancer cells. The drugs most often used include vincristine, etoposide, topotecan, cyclophosphamie and cisplatin.

In certain cases, particularly when the cancer has spread too far to be completely removed by surgery - as is the case with the fourth stage of neuroblastoma - chemotherapy is the primary treatment.

Bone Marrow Transplantation and Blood Stem Cell Transplantation

High-intensity chemotherapy can destroy bone marrow completely. Without marrow, new blood cells won’t develop. To solve this problem, children with neuroblastoma are often treated with high-intensity chemotherapy and then must undergo a bone marrow transplantation or peripheral blood stem cell transplantation.

Radiation Therapy

Typically, radiation treatments are used as a final attempt to kill any remaining neuroblastoma stage 4 cells after surgery on an affected area.

However, in many instances of late-stage and advanced neuroblastoma, it’s rarely used unless it’s implemented as a pain-management tool or in conjunction with chemotherapy.

Tags: Cancer //