Do the Radiological Criteria with the Use of Risk Factors Impact the Forecasting of Abdominal Neuroblastic Tumor Resection in Children?

BACKGROUND The treatment of neuroblastoma is dependent on exquisite staging; is performed postoperatively and is dependent on the surgeon's expertise. The use of risk factors through imaging on diagnosis appears as predictive of resectability, complications and homogeneity in staging. AIM To evaluate the traditional resectability criteria with the risk factors for resectability, through the radiological images, in two moments: on diagnosis and in pre-surgical phase. Were analyzed the resectability, surgical complications and relapse rate. METHODS Retrospective study of 27 children with abdominal and pelvic neuroblastoma stage 3 and 4, with tomography and/or resonance on the diagnosis and pre-surgical, identifying the presence of risk factors. RESULTS The mean age of the children was 2.5 years at diagnosis, where 55.6% were older than 18 months, 51.9% were girls and 66.7% were in stage 4. There was concordance on resectability of the tumor by both methods (INSS and IDRFs) at both moments of the evaluation, at diagnosis (p=0.007) and post-chemotherapy (p=0.019); In this way, all resectable patients by IDRFs in the post-chemotherapy had complete resection, and the unresectable ones, 87.5% incomplete. There was remission in 77.8%, 18.5% relapsed and 33.3% died. CONCLUSIONS Resectability was similar in both methods at both pre-surgical and preoperative chemotherapy; preoperative chemotherapy increased resectability and decreased number of risk factors, where the presence of at least one IDRF was associated with incomplete resections and surgical complications; relapses were irrelevant.