Table 2 Description of selected articles 1084 Study Country and time period Design and setting Patients and methods NB patients N of patients analysed (%) NB stage Control patients Method of review of cardiac status Miller et al. [21] USA, different time periods within 1941–1964 Multicentre retrospective patient series Patients (<15 years) with NB listed in the diagnostic files of the hospitals and National Cooperative Leukaemia Survey (n=nm) 504 (% unclear) nm – Miller et al. [20] USA, 1960–1966 Multicentre (all USA) retrospective cohort study Patients (<15 years) who died of NB (n=2,093) 2,093 (100) nm – Review of medical charts Review of death certificates Review of medical records Eur J Pediatr (2009) 168:1081–1090 Berry et al. [2] UK, time period nm De la Monte et al. [6] USA, 1889–1982 Single centre retrospective patient series Single centre retrospective cohort study Patients with NB (n=nm) 144 (% unclear) 63 (100) nm – Patients with NB listed in autopsy files with tumour present at autopsy (n=63)a nm A. Patients from remaining autopsy population minus peripheral neuroblastic tumours (n=43,149) B. Patients with malignant melanoma or central neuroblastic tumour in same autopsy population (n=135) Review of autopsy files (in addition all available fixed heart specimens and post- mortem coronary angiograms of CHD were studied) 7 (11.1) A. 2,081 (4.8) B. 0 (0) nm Foulkes et al. [9] Results N of patients with CHD (%) N of controls with CHD (%) Significance 7 (1.4) – – 6 (0.3) – – 2 (1.4) – – aNNNaBkeiusnsraeoubetlraoaslb.to[l2am3s]atowmaas, dCeNHteegcDltieadceotinnalgc.ie[d2ne5i]ntatalllhyeaatrtaudteofpescytsi,nnamlMlpannaonttieemtnatels.n[w1ti6iot]hneCdHD Mili et al. [19] bIn six cases neuroblastoma was detected incidentally, of which three cases during evaluation of CHD cIn all patients with CHD neuroblastoma was detected in a screening programme using urine samples dOdds ratio for neuroblastoma risk in patients with CHD Children’s Hospital-AMC. Sixty-seven patients were ex- cluded from this study because they had been referred from other centres. One hundred eighty-five patients had de- ceased by the time of the start of this study. The study group therefore consisted of 133 living patients. Inclusion and exclusion of patients is illustrated in Fig. 1. In 34 of 133 patients an echocardiogram had been performed in the past. The images of 17 of 34 patients were extensive enough for confirming or ruling out the presence of CHD and therefore were analysed retrospectively. The 17 patients with inaccurate echocardiography as well as 99 patients without echocardiography were approached to undergo cardiac evaluation. We obtained echocardiography in 104 of these 116 patients. In the remaining 12 patients, echocardiography could not be performed: three patients had moved abroad, two patients were untraceable and seven patients refused to undergo echocardiography. Two addi- tional patients, children aged 12 and 24 months, were