Significance and problems of evaluating surgical treatment results in multidisciplinary approach to treatment of pediatric solid tumors

Abstract

A multidisciplinary approach is mandatory in the treatment of refractory pediatric solid tumor patients. To determine the postoperative strategy of chemotherapy or radiotherapy, an accurate evaluation of surgical treatment results is necessary. Although the surgeon who performed the operation write operative notes according to his or her subjective views, are they enough for the accurate evaluation of surgical treatment results? Is it possible to make an objective evaluation of surgical treatment results by postoperative radiological examination? What is the appropriate timing for postoperative radiological evaluation? How should we use the pathological evaluation results? Evaluation methods and results could be variables for a particular disease. This session was conducted to solve these clinical questions. For this reason, we selected the speakers who are not only surgeons but also radiologists and pathologists. We regret that brain tumor, renal tumor, extracranial germ cell tumor and non-rhabdomyosarcoma soft-tissue sarcoma could not be discussed in this session because of limited time. We selected speakers from only the JCCG (Japan Children’s Cancer Group) committees of neuroblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma and hepatoblastoma. Hopefully, this session could serve as a platform for discussion on the evaluation of surgical treatment results as part of the multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of pediatric solid tumors and could provide a direction for the accurate evaluation. We also hope that this session may improve the quality of clinical studies on pediatric oncology.