Guidelines for the diagnosis and therapy of testicular cancer and new developments

The guidelines of testicular cancer were elaborated and agreed upon interdisciplinarily. Standard therapy of stage I seminoma is infradiaphragmatic radiotherapy. Possible alternatives are adjuvant carboplatin therapy (still in test procedure) and, in case of lacking risk factors, the watch-and-wait strategy. If small metastases of lymph nodes exist, radiotherapy requires a higher dose and a larger beam field. Standard therapy in clinical stage IIC-III is cisplatin-based multidrug chemotherapy. In regard to nonseminomatous germ cell tumor there are no universal recommendations: retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy (RLA) with protection of ejaculation function, watch-and-wait strategy as well as adjuvant chemotherapy have the same cure rate but differ in relapse rate and morbidity. Knowing the crucial risk factors - depending on the expected relapse rate - it will be possible to recommend adjuvant chemotherapy or wait-and-see strategy in the future. In case of lymph nodes up to 5 cm, three different therapeutic strategies are possible. They reach the same cure rate, but are associated with different morbidity: primary nerve-sparing RLA plus adjuvant chemotherapy, primary nerve-sparing RLA without adjuvant chemotherapy, and primary chemotherapy. Advanced stages are related to three different groups in reference to their prognosis. At present, they are still treated with three or four cycles of PEB. In current protocols, patients with 'poor prognosis' receive high-dose therapy afterwards. These results have to be taken in consideration when updating the guidelines. The present guidelines also give notes for the therapy of TIN, residual tumor resection (RTR), management of CNS metastases, and therapy of recurrences.