Epidemiological and clinical behavior of prepubertal testicular tumors in Korea

To our knowledge there is no multi-institutional report on prepubertal testicular tumors in Korea to date. We obtained demographic data for a better understanding of the biological behavior and optimal management of these tumors.

The prepubertal testicular tumor registry form was mailed to all 87 hospitals registered in the Korean Urology Association. We retrospectively reviewed recent 5-year medical records.

A total of 209 patients were enrolled in this registry. The incidence was 0.98/100,000 children. Age was 1 to 142 months (median 18). Most patients were diagnosed with a scrotal mass before age 4 years. Serum alpha-fetoprotein and beta-human chorionic gonadotropin increased in as many as 62.9% and 2.7% of patients, including 94.7% and 2.2% in those with yolk sac tumor and 30.4% and 2.7% in those with teratoma, respectively. While potentially malignant tumors accounted for 52.5% of patients, the remainder were benign. Germ cell tumors were the most common (89.4% of cases), mainly with yolk sac tumor (47.8%) or teratoma (39.7%). Management after surgery included surveillance in 71.8% of cases, chemotherapy in 9.1%, combination therapy in 1.4% and other in 17.7%. Of the total patients 10.5% (5.9% of stage I yolk sac tumors) had progression to metastasis. The final results of treatment were complete remission (64.6% of cases), incomplete remission (2.9%), no response or disease progression (1.4%) and unknown (31.1%). Outcomes at the last followup (average 23.5 months) were 76.1% of patients alive, 0.9% dead and 23.0% of unknown status.

Demographic data on pediatric testicular tumors in Korea will lead to a better understanding of these rare tumors and to optimal therapy in these children.