Beneficial effects following carbon dioxide laser excision on experimental neuroblastoma

Treatment of neuroblastoma in children consists of primary excision with adjuvant radiation and chemotherapy. When the tumor invades surrounding structures that cannot be safely excised or when distant metastasis is present, the patient has a poor prognosis. Because the CO 2 laser can be used to excise malignant tumors without seeding the surrounding tissue and because the defocused beam can vaporize malignant cells, we compared partial scalpel excision and partial laser excision of C1300 murine neuroblastoma to the growth rate of residual tumor. In 25 mice, 75% of the tumor was excised with a scalpel, and in another 25, the same percentage was excised with the CO 2 laser (10 W). CO 2 laser excision significantly decreases the growth of residual neuroblastoma ( P 2 laser excision of neuroblastoma may prove to be superior to scalpel excision for primary surgical treatment of neuroblastoma.