Prenatal detection of neuroblastoma by fetal ultrasonography.

Purpose: We report three cases of neuroblastoma diagnosed by prenatal ultrasound examination and examine the biologic features of tumors diagnosed prenatally.

Patients and methods: Neuroblastoma is the most common tumor detected in the newborn period. Thus, some of these tumors develop prenatally and should be detectable by maternal ultrasound. Here we report three cases in which a neuroblastoma was suspected on prenatal ultrasonography. In addition, we review selected features of 17 additional cases reported in the literature.

Results and conclusions: These data indicate that, although the majority of patients have favorable clinical and biological features and do well, some patients do not, and the DNA index may be the most important predictor of outcome.