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Fonseka et al. J Cancer Metastasis Treat 2020;6:7 I http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2394-4722.2019.024 Page 9 of 11

neuroblastoma treatment. As mentioned above, despite aggressive therapy, the overall survival for high-risk
[60]
neuroblastoma patients is < 50% at five years . In fact, the survival rate of relapsed stage 4 neuroblastoma
[61]
patients as per the International Neuroblastoma Risk Group database between 1990 and 2002 is 8% .
Alarmingly, the survival rate drops below 4% for N-Myc amplified neuroblastoma patients.

Hence, the findings from this study have clear potential therapeutic benefits to increase the survival of the
high-risk neuroblastoma patients. Importantly, as curcumin and silibinin have been shown to be safe and
well-tolerated in randomised clinical trials [62-67] , they can be readily utilised for neuroblastoma therapy.

DECLARATIONS
Author contributions
Conceived and directed the entire project: Mathivanan S
Performed the experiments: Fonseka P, Angela DG, Gangoda L
Performed bioinformatics analysis: Pathan M
Prepared the figures, drafted and finalized the manuscript with inputs from other authors: Fonseka P,
Mathivanan S
Read and approved the manuscript: Fonseka P, Gangoda L, Pathan M, Angela DG, Mathivanan S

Availability of data and materials
Not applicable.

Financial support and sponsorship
Suresh Mathivanan is supported by ANZ Trustees and Ramaciotti Establishment Grant. Suresh Mathivanan
is supported by Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT180100333) but the project was not
funded by the basic science fellowship. Angela Di Giannatale is supported by a Grant from the Italian
Ministry of Health (GR-2016-02364088). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and
analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Conflicts of interest
All authors declared that there are no conflicts of interest.

Ethical approval and consent to participate
Animal study was conducted according to Australian code of practice for the care and use of animals for
scientific purposes and La Trobe Ethics Committee guidelines (AEC 14-15).

Consent for publication
Not applicable.

Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020.

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