THE TREATMENT OF ADVANCED NEUROBLASTOMA - RESULTS OF THE SPANISH NEUROBLASTOMA STUDY-GROUP (SNSG) STUDIES

The Spanish Neuroblastoma Study Group has conducted a study on advance d neuroblastoma (N-I-87), which included 33 stage III and 60 stage IV neuroblastoma children more than 1 year of age, enrolled between Octob er 1987 and April 1992. They were staged according to Evans and treate d with induction chemotherapy (IC) consisting of 3 courses of cyclopho sphamide-doxorubicin alternating with 3 of high-dose cisplatin-tenipos ide. Evaluation after IC and surgery demonstrated an overall response rate of 88% for stage III and 69% for stage IV. In the latter, complet e responses and good partial responses were 33 and 14%, respectively. After surgery, children received maintenance chemotherapy (all stage I II except 2 and 30 stage IV) or autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) (11 stage IV), the distribution was not randomised. Probabilit y of survival at 5 years was 0.60 +/- 0.12 for stage III and 0.24 +/- 0.07 for stage IV. A significant difference in survival at 5 years was found between ''good responders'' and ''non-responders'' to initial c hemotherapy.