Catecholamine metabolites in neuroblastoma patients

Neuroblastoma is a paediatric malignancy of the developing sympathetic nervous system that is characterised by increased production and excretion of catecholamine metabolites such as homovanillic acid (HVA) and vanillylmandelic acid (VMA). Catecholamine metabolites are mainly applied as diagnostics biomarkers for neuroblastoma, other application such as prognosis prediction have rarely been evaluated. In this study, we performed an in-depth analysis of the diagnostic sensitivity of eight urinary catecholamine metabolites [HVA, VMA, dopamine, 3-methoxytyramine, norepinephrine, normetanephrine, epinephrine and metanephrine] and their correlation with clinical factors in a cohort of 301 patients. We studied catecholamine excretion patterns, both in vitro and in vivo, and elucidated their underlying biology. Finally, we evaluated the use catecholamine metabolites as prognostic biomarkers. Our data show that analysis of the panel of eight catecholamine metabolites improves diagnostics sensitivity, enables identification of clinical subgroups and assists in risk assessment of patients with neuroblastoma, thus can improve clinical care for patients with neuroblastoma.