MASS-SCREENING FOR NEUROBLASTOMA AND MORTALITY IN BIRTH COHORTS

Mortality resulting from neuroblastoma in birth cohorts in both Sappor o City and the whole of Japan was investigated to evaluate the effects of a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) mass screening pro gram, targeting on 6 month-old infants, In Sapporo City, the non-HPLC screened cohort showed no reduction in mortality at 4 years of age com pared with the pre-screening cohort. However, the HPLC screened cohort showed a reduction of 69% in mortality compared with the pre-screenin g cohort. On a nation-wide scale, there was a significant: decline in mortality for the non-HPLC screened cohort compared with the pre-scree ning cohort; for the HPLC screened cohort for 1989-1991, there was als o a reduction in mortality for children younger than 2 years of age, T he incidence of neuroblastoma at 1-4 years of age in the HPLC cohort i n Sapporo City was about half that in the pre-screening cohort, along with and probably because of an increasing incidence among infants in the same cohort, Our findings suggest that HPLC screening may detect s ome poor-prognosis neuroblastoma cases at early stages, thus providing for more favorable therapy. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.