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Ovarian tumors in the pediatric age group are rare. A significant number of children with ovarian mass lesions present "out of hours "as surgical emergencies, and surgical management does not always involve a surgical oncologist. This multicenter study reports how the mode of clinical presentation may influence (i) operation (conventional open vs minimally invasive surgery (MIS)) and (ii) examines if young females presenting as surgical emergency(s) are more likely to undergo total oophorectomy or ovarian sparing surgery.Retrospective multicenter study amongst UK pediatric surgical oncology centers. Females16 years with diagnosis of ovarian tumor from 2006 to 2016 were included. Functional/neonatal ovarian cysts were excluded.Three hundred ten patients with ovarian tumors treated at 12 surgical oncology centers were identified. Mean age at surgery was 11 years [IQR 8-14]. Most common diagnosis were mature teratoma (57%, 177 cases), immature teratoma (10.9%, 34 cases) and cystadenoma (12%, 36 cases). Seventy percent (217) of cases were performed as open procedures. Thirty percent (94) of children underwent MIS. Tumors were significantly smaller in children who underwent MIS. Median tumor size in the laparoscopic group was 6 cm compared to 11 cm in the open group (p 0.00001). Children who underwent MIS were significantly more likely to have ovary sparing surgery.This UK nationwide study demonstrates that ovary-sparing surgery and minimally invasive surgery are still infrequently deployed by pediatric surgeons in the UK. Patients with smaller tumors were more likely to undergo MIS, and more frequently underwent ovary-sparing surgery. In view of the implications on fertility and hormonal health caused by unilateral oophorectomy, it is time to review this current practise and agree consensus guidelines to reduce rates of unnecessary oophorectomy.This is a level II evidence study. It is a retrospective multicentre collaborative study, which summarizes data from a national cohort of children.

Accurate assessment of neuroblastoma outcome prediction remains challenging. Therefore, this study aims at establishing novel prognostic tumor DNA methylation biomarkers. In total, 396 low-and high-risk primary tumors were analyzed, of which 87 were profiled using methyl-CpG-binding domain (MBD) sequencing for differential methylation analysis between prognostic patient groups. Subsequently, methylation-specific PCR (MSP) assays were developed for 78 top-ranking differentially methylated regions and tested on two independent cohorts of 132 and 177 samples, respectively. Further, a new statistical framework was used to identify a robust set of MSP assays of which the methylation score (i.e. the percentage of methylated assays) allows accurate outcome prediction. Survival analyses were performed on the individual target level, as well as on the combined multimarker signature. As a result of the differential DNA methylation assessment by MBD sequencing, 58 of the 78 MSP assays were designed in regions previously unexplored in neuroblastoma, and 36 are located in non-promoter or non-coding regions. In total, 5 individual MSP assays (located in CCDC177, NXPH1, lnc-MRPL3-2, lnc-TREX1-1 and one on a region from chromosome 8 with no further annotation) predict event-free survival and 4 additional assays (located in SPRED3, TNFAIP2, NPM2 and CYYR1) also predict overall survival. Furthermore, a robust 58-marker methylation signature predicting overall and event-free survival was established. In conclusion, this study encompasses the largest DNA methylation biomarker study in neuroblastoma so far. We identified and independently validated several novel prognostic biomarkers, as well as a prognostic 58-marker methylation signature.