Neuroblastoma in monozygotic twins – a case of probable twin-to-twin metastasis

Abstract

Concordance for neuroblastoma in monozygotic twins has been reported only rarely, and the cause of the shared pathology has not been established. We describe a case of infant monozygotic twins developing tumours that were morphologically, clinically and molecularly indistinguishable, but with a delay of 6 months between times of presentation. Both tumours were metastatic and had amplification of MYCN and deletion at 1p36. Twin 1, who developed neuroblastoma first, had constitutional karyotype abnormalities in at least 5% of peripheral blood mononuclear cells involving 1p and 3p, and a deletion of 1q44 in 21% of cells. Twin 2 had a normal constitutional karyotype and lacked rearrangement or deletion of these regions. We propose an acquired neuroblastoma predisposition specific for twin 1, and in utero metastatic spread of tumour cells to twin 2 via the shared placental circulation. © 2001 Cancer Research Campaign http://www.bjcancer.com

The risk of cancer in twins: A report from the childhood cancer survivor study

“…An additional twin pair in the cohort was concordant for non‐Hodgkin lymphoma, which has not been reported previously to our knowledge. We did not verify previous reports of elevated risk of neuroblastoma, CNS tumors, Wilms tumor, or Hodgkin disease among twins of childhood cancer cases 3,13,15,16.…”

Constitutional 3p26.3 terminal microdeletion in an adolescent with neuroblastoma

“…5,6,28 Finally, the constitutional inv(3) (p23p26) seen in some metaphase cells from monozygotic twins with NB might be of some significance. 11 Array-CGH has led to the identification of the new 3p terminal deletion syndrome. 5 This emerging syndrome is a rare contiguous gene syndrome caused by 3p25-pter deletions variable in size and mostly occurring de novo.…”

Concordance for neuroblastoma in monozygotic twins: case report and review of the literature

“…To the best of our knowledge, as shown in Table 1, only 9 sets of monozygotic twins concordant for neuroblastoma, including the current cases, have been described; and no concordant neuroblastoma cases have been described for dizygotic twins [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11].…”