MASS-SCREENING FOR NEUROBLASTOMA BY HPLC AND BY NON-HPLC - A REVIEW

There have been a number of contradictory views concerning the efficac y of mass screening for neuroblastoma. Three Japanese and one cohort s tudy from Quebec, and three Japanese cross-sectional studies were revi ewed. The four cohort studies revealed that mass screening using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) reduced the incidence of this disease by about half in children aged from 1 to 4 years while little reduction was noted in screening utilizing non-HPLC methods. There is a large difference in the efficacy of mass screening depending on the method used. In the three cross-sectional studies, there was no discr imination between screened and unscreened cases, or between subjects s creened by HPLC and non-HPLC methods. The percentage of children in th e cross-sectional studies screened by HPLC was low. Cross-sectional st udies seem inappropriate in assessing the effectiveness of current HPL C mass screening.