Sacrococcygeal teratoma in Sweden: a 10-year national retrospective study

Thirty-two children with sacrococcygeal teratoma have been treated during the last 10 years (1980 to 1989) in Sweden. A retrospective study was performed in four departments of pediatric surgery that treat sacrococcygeal teratomas in children from the whole of Sweden. Prenatal and perinatal histories were reviewed together with interval to diagnosis, Altman classification, histology, and serum alpha-fetoprotein. Details of surgical management +/- adjuvant chemotherapy and outcome of patients were also documented. In 8 patients the teratoma was diagnosed prenatally by ultrasonography and there was one postoperative death in this group. Multiagent chemotherapy was used in all but one of 11 patients with malignant teratomas (in 8 of them a cisplatin, bleomycin, vinblastine combination). Only one patient with a malignant tumor treated by single-agent chemotherapy died, 8 others were still alive and tumor-free after 1 to 9 years (mean time, 5.4 years). Two patients developed late relapses and were treated by surgical resection. Metastases occurred in five of the 11 malignant tumors, one at presentation and in four patients 10 to 29 months following surgery. All relapses had distant metastases as well as local disease. Serum alpha-fetoprotein was used in monitoring some of these patients.