Penile cancer

A retrospective study was made of the case histories of 91 patients with a penile tumor. The tumor histology of 56 patients could be re-evaluated, confirming the diagnosis: epidermoid cancer. Fifty three of these 56 patients were treated more than five years before the retrospective evaluation. Penile carcinoma has not increased in frequency during the last few decades. No correlation could be found between venereal diseases and penile carcinoma, nor between the duration of symptoms before treatment and the development of metastases. Amputation is the treatment of choice. Lymph node dissection must be performed when metastatic disease is suspected. When patients die of tumor, this is caused by metastatic disease, but in about 50 percent of cases the patients can be saved by dissection of positive nodes, preventing a further extension. More than 70 percent of 53 patients have survived for at least five years without evidence of recurrence or metastatic disease including six (out of 11) patients in whom the dissected inguinal lymph nodes showed involvement. In this series of patients cytostatic therapy was not used. Bleomycin is known to have a definite action on these tumors, but only the far future can show if better results are to be expected with a combination of the described therapy with cytostatic drugs.