[Actinomycin-D therapy in testicular cancer (author's transl)]

In early stages of the disease the prognosis of testicular cancer has been improved mainly by the introduction of radical surgical procedures. Cytostatic treatment of metastasising testicular cancers has only been of limited value. Actinomycin D has been shown to be one of the most potent agents in malignant teratomas. Own results are presented for 21 eligible patients who received actinomycin D alone. One complete remission and 4-partial remissions were achieved giving an overall response rate of 19%. This precentage seems to be low compared to similar data in the current literature. The result may be explained by the selection of the patients with a high percentage showing far advanced disease before therapy was initiated. However, comparing the data presented with those from our own study on combination chemotherapy and with the more recent results in the literature, single agent chemotherapy does not seem to be the method of choice in metastasising testicular cancer. Improvement of the results by the integration of combination chemotherapy, hormonal therapy and irradiation will have to be based on prospective, controlled studies.