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We were working through this problem yesterday, with a newly admitted child with probable neuroblastoma. We are only interested in investigation of the individual, not population screening. We found: Paediatric reference ranges.... Fitzgibbon and Tormey, Annals 1994: 31: 1-11 and quite a lot of detail on "sensitivity and specificity" in "Clinical Laboratory Diagnosis" Lothar Thomas (yes, it is now available in the UK: TH Books ISBN 3-9805215-4-0). We measure individual and total metanephrines and 3 methoxytyramine in an untimed urine, expressed as a ratio to creatinine, reports available the afternoon after the specimen is collected, 7 days a week. However this approach is piggy-backed onto our management of adult phaeochromocytoma, and we don't know whether we should be measuring HMMA as well as metanephrines, or a wider range of dopamine metabolites. Dr Jonathan Kay University of Oxford "R.W. Wulkan" wrote: > Dear collegues, > > We are interested in opinions about the choice of analytes for > neuroblastoma screening. > Should it be NE/E, MN/NMN or the usual VMA/HVA in urine? > Literature seems relatively scarce, especially with large patient > groups, as is the frequency of occurrence. > > Best regards, > > Raymond Wulkan > Zuiderziekenhuis > Rotterdam-NL %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%