Talking about advanced solid malignancies in children

Many solid tumors in children have no special symptoms in the early stage, and once they are detected, they are often advanced or even have metastasized. Most doctors are reluctant to take over this type of patients, and parents can only give up treatment and watch their children suffer in pain and leave us step by step. No matter who it is, this is a suffering, whenever I encounter such patients I always want to be able to help these children by possible, hoping to give the child a good result, some failed, some succeeded. Although the tumor is usually large when found, the surgical resection rate is relatively high. Even if the tumor is wrapped around a large blood vessel or even grows to the opposite side, the tumor can be completely removed, as long as the operation is patient and meticulous. Sometimes the tumor grows along the blood vessels, we call it tumor embolism, I have seen children with this thing growing near the heart, and some children with extensive metastasis in both lungs, some of these children actually have hope, they can first look at chemotherapy, most of them are sensitive to chemotherapy, a few courses of treatment may not be tumor embolism and metastases, then surgery, then chemotherapy for six months to a year after surgery can also be cured, some children are not sensitive to chemotherapy. For such children, the only way to improve the quality of survival is to relieve the child’s pain and try to see us again with minimal pain. The effect of hepatoblastoma is second only to that of nephroblastoma, but the surgical risk of this disease is higher. The liver was already almost as big as the original one at the four weeks postoperative review. In the past, such cases were basically inoperable, but now there are good tools such as ultrasound knife and energy platform, which can be used for precise resection. One characteristic of hepatoblastoma is that metastasis is rare, but if metastasis is found at an extremely late stage and cannot be removed at the time of initial diagnosis, chemotherapy may reduce the size of the tumor and create a chance for resection. Even if it does not work, liver transplantation is possible. Shanghai Renji Hospital is currently the world’s largest center for pediatric liver transplantation. Lastly, I think neuroblastoma is the worst. It is insidious in location and grows around blood vessels, nerves and important structures, and the tumor has little envelope, and sometimes metastasis is found in the bone marrow. At present, the treatment effect is poor, the effect is good for those under five years old, but not so good for those above, it mainly depends on the pathological histotyping. The most serious case I have seen was a child with a kidney artery and vein, superior mesenteric artery and vein, splenic artery and abdominal aorta. In the neurological mother treatment chemotherapy is very important, chemotherapy is not good chemotherapy can try vincristine treatment, I have a patient 6 years ago is the root of the neck, from the neck to the thorax, because it can not be removed, then just do the pathology, and then chemotherapy. Six years later came back, the mass is still there, a CT or wrapped around the vascular nerve, to cut the clavicle ribs have to be sawed open, from the neck to the upper mediastinum, carotid subclavian artery, brachial plexus and vagus nerve also crossed from it. After the hospitalization, I was ready to do a big job, and I ordered all the clavicle plates, and first cut a piece of it alive. After discussing with the parents, we decided to live with the tumor and consider surgery when there are symptoms of pressure. After reviewing the previous pathology, it was indeed a malignant neuroma at that time, but the tumor differentiated itself into a benign one through chemotherapy. This may be the characteristic of neuroblastoma, which is rare but does exist. Overall the treatment of solid tumors in children is far better than in adults, even in very advanced children, and it is a great pity that many children give up. Especially the progress of drugs in recent years, the treatment effect is many times better than 20 years ago, and the most cutting-edge treatment technology such as targeted therapy and cell therapy is almost blank in children’s solid malignant tumors, it is likely that there will be a breakthrough in the near future, so don’t give up, the dawn is ahead.