Neuroblastoma
Neuroblastoma is the most common solid cancer in young children, and it accounts for 15% of the pediatric deaths attributed to malignancies. Up to half of all cases occur in children less than 2 years old, with around 650 new cases diagnosed per year in the United States [Wikipedia; PMID 17586306].
Interestingly, neuroblastoma is known to spontaneously regress--that is, this type of childhood cancer can disappear without treatment. [PMID 1912509]; [1] Screening for neuroblastoma has been stopped in Japan because most patients found through screening at 6 months of age were treated unnecessarily; these tumors would have vanished on their own. [PMID 18395578] Symptomatic children, however, rarely experience spontaneous regression of neuroblastoma. [PMID 19638189]
Studies on genetic predisposition are difficult due to the rarity and lethality of the condition, while epidemiologic studies have also not found any common environmental risk-increasing agent. One hypothesis is that neuroblastomas arise from some as yet unknown combination of relatively common SNPs that can cumulatively increase the risk of a neuroblastic malignant transformation in fetal or early childhood development. [PMID 18463370]
Some studies have found genes associated with a favorable outcome, including DHRS3, NROB1, and CYP26A1. [PMID 19701758]
To date, SNPs that have been associated with increased risk for neuroblastoma include:
