Pathophysiology of Neuroblastoma

Document from the year 2018 in the subject Medicine - Epidemiology, grade: 1, Egerton University, language: English, abstract: Neuroblastoma refers to a malignant cancer disease that affects the nerve tissue in different parts of the body, primarily the nerve tissue of the spinal cord, adrenal glands, chest and neck. However, the disease is believed to begin from the adrenal glands and spread to the other nerve tissues. In most cases, neuroblastoma sets in the early childhood, especially in children below the age of 5 years, and persists into adulthood. In rare occasions, malignant cancer cells form during the fetal development stages of the fetus, long before the child is born, as it has been identified in ultrasound results. In practice, neuroblastoma presents some difficulties in both management and diagnosis because this cancer spreads rapidly and this explains why diagnosis is usually done when the disease has already metastasized to the bones, lymph nodes, skin and the liver.