[Solitary osseous metastasis in a patient with germ cell tumor--successful chemotherapy]

A 25-year-old patient with testicular teratoma (pathological stage I) relapsed with a solitary, symptomatic metastasis in the right humerus 8 months after unilateral orchiectomy and lymphadenectomy. Treatment consisted in three cycles of standard chemotherapy with etoposide, bleomycin and cisplatin (the last replaced by carboplatin in courses 2 and 3). No supplementary treatment proved necessary to achieve complete remission and complete physical rehabilitation. Only four cases of solitary bone metastasis of testicular germ cell tumors have been reported previously. The present case illustrates that, contrary to previous reports, symptomatic skeletal metastases of germ cell tumors can safely be treated with standard chemotherapy alone.