Treatments for neuroblastoma
If your child has neuroblastoma, the healthcare team will create a treatment plan just for your child. It will be based on your child's health and specific information about the cancer. When deciding which treatments to offer for neuroblastoma, your child's healthcare team will consider:
- your child’s age
- the stage (size and location of neuroblastoma and whether it has spread)
- the risk group
- your child's overall health
Doctors will closely monitor the child’s response to treatment to decide if treatment should continue, if treatment can be stopped or if they should try other treatments.
Response to treatment
Knowing how well neuroblastoma responds to treatment helps doctors decide whether or not treatment can be stopped or more treatment is needed. Response to treatment is monitored using imaging tests. MIBG and PET scans are used for measuring the primary tumour and any spread to bone, bone marrow, lymph node or soft tissue. Doctors use the following criteria to measure the response to treatment.
Complete response means that there is no evidence of disease by MIBG or PET scan in any location of soft tissue or bone, with less than 10 mm at largest diameter of primary tumour, less than 10 mm at largest diameter of target lymph nodes and no tumour in 2 bone marrow biopsies and 2 bone marrow aspirations.
Partial response means that all tumours are over 30% smaller than before treatment, there are no new metastases and an MIBG or PET scan showed at least a 50% reduction in bone metastases.
Stable disease means that some tumours may have shrunk, but by less than 30% of their original size, or the MIBG or PET scan may have improved but by less than a 50% reduction in score. This group also includes patients where there is no apparent response to treatment at all.
Progressive disease means that there is a new tumour or new spots on an MIBG scan, a tumour has grown by at least 20%, or there are cancer cells in the bone marrow that were not there before treatment.