Health Topic

Neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma is a cancer in nerve tissue in the adrenal gland, neck, chest, or spinal cord. It often affects young children. Read about treatments.

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Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Neuroblastoma

Neuroblastoma is a type of cancer that forms in nerve cells called neuroblasts. Neuroblasts are immature nerve tissue. They normally turn into working nerve cells. But in neuroblastoma, they form a tumor.

Neuroblastoma usually begins in the adrenal glands. You have two adrenal glands, one on top of each kidney. The adrenal glands make important hormones that help control heart rate, blood pressure, blood glucose (blood sugar), and the way the body reacts to stress. Neuroblastoma may also begin in the neck, chest or spinal cord.

Neuroblastoma is caused by changes in your genes. Gene changes also called gene variants or mutations. In most cases, the cause of the mutation is unknown. In some other cases, the mutation is passed from the parent to the child.

Neuroblastoma often begins in early childhood. Sometimes it begins before a child is born.The most common symptoms are caused by the tumor pressing on nearby tissues as it grows or by cancer spreading to the bone.They include:

  • A lump in the abdomen, neck, or chest
  • Bulging eyes
  • Dark circles around the eyes
  • Bone pain
  • Swollen stomach and trouble breathing in babies
  • Painless, bluish lumps under the skin in babies
  • Weakness or paralysis (loss of ability to move a body part)

To diagnose neuroblastoma, your child's health care provider will do various tests and procedures, which may include:

  • A medical history.
  • A neurological exam.
  • Imaging tests, such as x-rays, a CT scan, an ultrasound, an MRI, or an MIBG scan. In an MIBG scan, a small amount of a radioactive substance is injected into a vein. It travels through the bloodstream and attaches itself to any neuroblastoma cells. A scanner detects the cells.
  • Blood and urine tests.
  • Biopsy, in which a sample of tissue is removed and examined under a microscope.
  • Bone marrow aspiration and biopsy, in which bone marrow, blood, and a small piece of bone are removed for testing.

The treatments for neuroblastoma include:

  • Observation, also called watchful waiting, is where the health care provider does not give any treatments until your child's signs or symptoms appear or change.
  • Surgery
  • Radiation therapy.
  • Chemotherapy.
  • High-dose chemotherapy and radiation therapy with stem cell rescue. Your child will get high doses of chemotherapy and radiation. This kills the cancer cells, but it also kills healthy cells. So your child will get a stem cell transplant, usually of his or her own cells collected earlier. This helps to replace the healthy cells that were lost.
  • Iodine 131-MIBG therapy, a treatment with radioactive iodine. The radioactive iodine collects in neuroblastoma cells and kills them with the radiation that is given off.
  • Targeted therapy, which uses drugs or other substances that attack specific cancer cells with less harm to normal cells.

It sits within Cancers and Brain and Nerves.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Cancer Institute.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Neuroblastoma

767 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

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Diagnosis and Tests

Treatments and Therapies

Genetics

Statistics and Research

Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Neuroblastoma. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Neuroblastoma, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.