[Results of chemotherapy and salvage surgery for advanced testicular cancer]

Since 1980, 73 patients with advanced testicular cancer have been treated with chemotherapy and 43 patients received post-chemotherapy (salvage) surgery. The median age of all patients was 31 years old, ranging from 17 to 63 years. The histology of the primary testicular tumor was pure seminoma in 23 patients and non-seminoma in 50 patients. According to the Japan Urological Association classification, 38 patients were classified as stage II and 35 patients as stage III. As first-line chamotherapy, 52 patients were treated with PVB regimen (cisplatin, vinblastin, bleomycin), 16 patients with PEB (cisplatin, etoposide, bleomycin) and 5 patients with VAB-6 (vinblastine, actinomycin-D, bleomycin, cisplatin, cyclophosphamide). Thirty (41%) of the 73 patients achieved a complete response (CR) with chemotherapy alone and 63 (86%) achieved no evidence of disease (NED) with salvage treatment. As second-line chemotherapy, 16 patients were treated with PE (cisplatin, etoposide), or VIP (etoposide, ifosfamide, cisplatin) or VeIP (vinblastine, ifosfamide, cisplatin). One of the 16 patients achieved CR and 11 (69%) patients achieved NED. As salvage surgery, retroperitoneal lymphnode dissection (RPLND) was performed in 22 patients, RPLND with thoracotomy in 7 cases and thoracotomy alone in 4 cases. Necrosis was found in surgical specimens of 24 (56%) patients, mature teratoma in 6 (14%) and residual cancer in 13 (30%). Ninety-six percent and 100% of the patients with necrosis and mature teratoma survived with NED, respectively, but only 54% of the patients with residual carcinoma survived despite further treatment. Residual cancer was still found in 8 of the 32 (25%) marker normalized cases. Residual cancer could not reliably be predicted or discriminated from necrosis or mature teratoma by the prognostic criteria. Therefore, salvage surgery remains essential in the treatment of advanced testicular cancer.