Clinical features and survival analysis of neuroblastoma with cervical lymph node metastasis in children: su-mmary of 10 years in single center

Objective To improve the awareness of neuroblastoma (NB) with cervical lymph node metastasis in children patients by summarizing the clinical features of such patients and analyzing their survival situation. Methods The research analyzed the medical records of 225 patients with cervical lymph node metastasis of NB from April 1, 2007 to May 31, 2017 in Beijing Children′s Hospital, Capital Medical University.The treatment were divided into 2 phases according to treatment time (one from April 1, 2007 to December 31, 2011 and the other from January 1, 2012 to May 31, 2017). The survival situation and treatment effect in each phase were analyzed.The following up time ended at Jan 1, 2018. Results (1)Clinical features: total 225 cases admitted in the research with about 37.3% of all the NB patients.One hundred girls(44.4%) and 125 boys(55.6%). The age from 2 months to 147 months, the me-dian age of patients was 37 months.The age under 18 months were 27 cases(12.1%). The majority primary site of tumor was located in retroperitoneal(174 cases, 77.3%) and mediastinum(48 cases, 21.3%). There were 33 cases which metastasic site confined to cervical lymph node(4N stage, 14.7%); 139 cases (62.1%) with bone marrow metastasis, 159 cases (71.0%) with bone metastasis.The number of patients in high-risk group was 208 cases(91.2%), while the low-risk and the medium-risk group was 17 cases(7.5%). (2)Treatment effect and survival analysis: a total of 200 cases received systemic treatment and followed-up in our hospital.The follow up time from 2 months to 123 months, the median follow up time was 23 months.The 3 year overall survival (OS) rate of all the patients was 56.4%, the 3 year event free survival (EFS) rate was 52.0%.While the 5-year OS was 46.5%, and the 5-year EFS was 39.7%.According to the first phase of treatment(April 1, 2007 to December 31, 2011), the 3-year EFS was 49.6%, and the 3-year OS was 54.4%, the 5-year EFS was 39.5%, and the 5-year OS was 44.7%.According to the second phase of treatment(January 1, 2012 to May 31, 2017), the 3-year EFS was 58.1%, and the 3-year OS was 57.3%.The 5-year EFS was 48.7%, and the 5-year OS was 46.8%.About the 4N patients, the 3-year EFS was 71.2%, and the 3-year OS was 82.2%.The 5-year EFS was 61.5%, and the 5-year OS was 76.7%. Conclusions Cervical lymph node is one of the most common distant metastasis of NB.More than half of the patient with bone or bone marrow metastasis.The prognosis of patients′ metastatic disease limited to cervical lymph nodes(4N stage), but still worse than the foreigner haver reported.The probable reason is the proportion of high-risk patients in the center is higher than the foreign research. Key words: Neuroblastoma; Cervical lymph node metastasis; Clinical features; Survival analysis