[Amplification of the N-myc cellular oncogene in neuroblastoma. Relation to other tumor markers]

Abstract

N-myc oncogene is amplified in several human neuroblastoma cell lines and fresh neoplastic tissues; amplification would be highly correlated with advanced stages of neoplasia and associated with poor outcome of the disease. According to these data, N-myc amplification should be a new prognostic marker in addition to classical clinical and laboratory findings commonly monitored in neuroblastoma; some of them are levels of urinary Vanillylmandelic Acid (VMA) and Homovanillic Acid (HVA), serum Lactic Dehydrogenase (LDH) and serum Ferritin (sFe). We studied 4 patients in stage III and IV; N-myc amplification was detected in 2 cases in stage IV in primary tumor cells and in one case this finding was associated with high levels of serum Ferritin and LDH, while no correlation between other laboratory parameters and N-myc amplification has been found. We propose that N-myc amplification has to be evaluated with other prognostic factors to obtain useful information about the disease and the survival of the patient.