Survival from locally invasive or widespread neuroblastoma without cytotoxic therapy.

Abstract

Our results suggest that non-stage 4 patients without N-myc amplification can be spared cytotoxic therapy because (1) residual postsurgical or recurrent biologically favorable neuroblastoma rarely evolves into lethal stage 4 disease; and (2) neuroblastoma in lymph nodes has no prognostic significance. These findings are remarkable because no other cancer includes subtypes that are curable without therapy to ablate residual disease.