Klin Onkol 1997; 10(4): 106-109.
The cure rate for most pediatric neoplasms has improved with an overall 70% cure rate for children with newly diagnosed disease over the last 30 years. However, patients who do not achieve complete remission or relapse have less than 25% chance of long term survival. With these facts as a background very high dose therapy (myeloablative therapy) given as a single course followed by autologous or allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation have been frequently used since the 1980´s. This article is a review about the use of megatherapy and hematopoietic stem cell rescue in children with very high risk or relapsed solid tumors.
