COMPARISON OF THE PROGNOSTIC-SIGNIFICANCE OF THE SHIMADA CLASSIFICATION AND N-MYC COPY NUMBER IN NEUROBLASTOMA - A PROSPECTIVE-STUDY

This report outlines the experience with the first 20 patients (8 male s and 12 females) enrolled in the Canadian National Neuroblastoma Diag nostic Laboratory, The study population ranged in age at diagnosis fro m one month to 11 years. Fourteen children had advanced (stage 3 or 4) disease. Tumors were sampled extensively and were classified, at the time of accession, according to the 'Shimada' histopathological scheme . A portion of each tumor was analyzed for N-myc oncogene copy number. Nine tumors were classified as having 'favourable' histopathological features and 11 as 'unfavourable'. N-myc oncogene amplification, of 3 or more copies, was found in 2 of 9 tumors with 'favourable' histology and 5 of 11 with 'unfavourable' features. The follow-up interval was at least two years from initial diagnosis. The Shimada classification was more accurate than the N-myc oncogene copy number (p<0.01) in pred icting clinical outcome. The sensitivity and specificity for Shimada h istopathological classification were 100% and 92% respectively, while corresponding values were 75% and 42% for N-myc copy number. Our exper ience indicates that, when assessing prognosis in neuroblastoma, Shima da classification performs better than the N-myc copy number.