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Neuroblastoma of the elderly, an oncologist's nightmare: case presentation, literature review and SEER database analysis

Neuroblastoma is considered a pediatric malignancy as over 95% of cases are diagnosed in patients less than or equal to 10years old. This cancer is extremely rare in elderly patients. We conducted a Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database analysis in the USA between 1973-2007 that revealed only 35 elderly patients (>60years of age) with neuroblastoma of whom only 2 patients had primary mediastinal neuroblastoma. There is a paucity of treatment and survival outcomes data for the elderly owing to the rarity of neuroblastoma in this population. Currently there are no standard guidelines or protocols for treatment of adult neuroblastoma. We report a rare and challenging case of an 86-year old patient presenting with mediastinal neuroblastoma and syndrome of inappropriate antidiuretic hormone secretion (SIADH) successfully treated with resection. Herein, we also provide a review of the literature and updated survival data on neuroblastoma based on results of our SEER database review.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/610137
Date January 2014
CreatorsRogowitz, Elisa, Babiker, Hani, Kanaan, Mohammed, Millius, Rebecca, Ringenberg, Q., Bishop, Maria
ContributorsUniversity of Arizona College of Medicine, 1501 N. Campbell Ave, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA, Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Medicine, Southern Arizona VA Health Care System, 3601 S 6Th Ave, Tucson, AZ 85723, USA, Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of Arizona College of Medicine, 1501 North Campbell Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA, Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Medicine, University of Arizona Cancer Center, 1515 N Campbell Ave, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA, Department of Pathology, University of Arizona College of Medicine, 1501 North Campbell Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA
PublisherBioMed Central
Source SetsUniversity of Arizona
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeArticle
Rights© 2014 Rogowitz et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)
Relationhttp://www.ehoonline.org/content/3/1/20

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