What is neuroblastoma?
Neuroblastoma is a tumour arising from particular nerve cells, which run in a chain-like fashion up the back of the child’s abdomen and chest and into the skull following the line of the spinal cord (neuro = nerve, blastoma = collection of tumour cells). The tumour occurs either in the sympathetic nervous system or closely associated adrenal glands and is usually, although not always, located in the abdomen. Because the symptoms of the disease tend to be varied and vague, some two-thirds of children are not diagnosed until the disease is widespread. It is a tumour almost exclusively of childhood and there is no exactly comparable tumour in an adult. It has its own specialist treatment that is different from any treatment undergone by anyone else you know who has had cancer. Despite intensive courses of chemotherapy and often intial success in treating the disease, the child often relapses, making this one of the most lethal of all childhood cancers.
