Objective:

Describe the experience in the management of patients diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma treated with autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation at the Valle de Lili Foundation Hospital.

Patients and Methods:

A series of cases of patients with a diagnosis of high-risk neuroblastoma who received an autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation between 2001 and 2015. The endpoints of this study were: overall survival, event-free survival, platelet and neutrophil graft time and the cumulative incidence of venous-occlusive disease. A descriptive statistical analysis was performed for all the variables considered in the analysis and for the selected subgroups. Survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method.

Results:

A total of 15 patients diagnosed with high risk neuroblastoma received an autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation between 2001 and 2015. Overall survival at 3 and 5 years was 55%, and the event-free survival was 47%. 14/15 patients grafted Neutrophils grafted between day 8 and 19 post-transplant in 14/15 patients, with platelet graft between days 9 and 91 days. Hepatic venous-occlusive disease was observed in 2/15 patients as toxicity to conditioning chemotherapeutic drugs. At the time of the last follow-up, 10/15 patients remained alive, 8 of whom had no clinical and/or para-clinical evidence of the disease. Of the 5/15 patients that died, 2 were due to transplant toxicity in the first 100 days, and 3 due to disease progression.

Conclusion:

We conclude that autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation is a viable alternative as a treatment in our setting for patients with high-risk neuroblastoma, and has contributed to improve survival in this group of patients.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )