Researchers from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the National Institute for Cancer Research, Genoa, Italy, Ghent University Hospital, Belgium, Scripps Research Institute, and the University of Rome have pinpointed gene mutations in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene responsible for the development of neuroblastoma in infants, the most common extracranial solid cancer in childhood.

Lead researcher John Maris, head of the Center for Childhood Cancer Research at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has underlined that the new results would enable both a better understanding of the deadly disease and a more informed approach in finding ways to battle it.

The good news is that there might be hope, as drugs which target this specific gene are already in development for other uses, such as in lymphoma and lung cancer in adults. The researchers managed to pinpoint the gene after analyzing DNA from 10 families hit by the disease.

Neuroblastoma develops first in the sympathetic nervous system or SNS. Around ten per million children aged 0 to 4 die of neuroblastoma each year, accounting for 15% of cancer deaths in children. It is also one of the few tumors known to demonstrate spontaneous regression from an undifferentiated state to a completely benign cellular appearance, for yet undetermined reasons.