ANTINEURONAL ANTIBODIES IN PATIENTS WITH NEUROBLASTOMA - RELATIONSHIPS WITH CLINICAL-FEATURES

We evaluated the frequency of serum antineuronal antibodies in a cohor t of 39 neuroblastoma patients and related their presence to clinical features. Twelve patients displayed anti-neuronal antibodies at immuno cytochemistry. Only one of these 12 patients suffered from a clinicall y overt paraneoplastic syndrome. No significant differences emerged be tween autoantibody-positive and autoantibody-negative patients in term s of progression-free and overall survival, although when only patient s evolving to disease progression were considered, the time interval b etween diagnosis and progression was slightly longer in autoantibody-p ositive patients.