Presenting features of thoracic neuroblastoma.

In a retrospective study carried out at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, for the period 1952-79, 7 cases of primary thoracic neuroblastoma were identified. The average age at presentation was 2 years. Respiratory symptoms were the modes of presentation in 2 patients, neurological symptoms in 4, and urinary tract symptoms in 1 patient. Dilatation of the urinary tract was present in 2 cases, and a third had a normal urinary tract but previous infections. After a maximum of 27 years and a minimum of 20 months, 5 of the patients remain well. One child died as a direct result of her tumour, the other from an unrelated tumour 25 years after partial excision of his neuroblastoma. The better prognosis of primary thoracic neuroblastoma and the variability of presentation compared with neuroblastoma in other sites are stressed.