[Treatment results and practical dosage of PVB therapy for advanced testicular tumors]

Twenty cases of advanced testicular tumors treated primarily by PVB therapy were reviewed. PVB therapy induced CR in 9 patients (45%). PR in 3 (15%), MR in 3, NC in 3 and PD in 2. The practical doses of the three drugs (cisplatin, vinblastine, bleomycin) were calculated for the initial three courses, and there was very little difference in the mean doses of the drugs per course between good responders (CR + PR, n = 12) and poor responders (MR + NC + PD, n = 8). The interval of each course for good responders was unexpectedly longer than that for poor responders (p less than 0.02). The prognosis based on several clinical factors was studied. The five-year survival rate (Kaplan-Meier) was 100% in stage II (n = 6) and 68.6% in stage III (n = 14) (statistically significant) and 90% in non-bulky cases (n = 10) and 58.3% in bulky cases (n = 10) (statistically insignificant). The two-year survival rate of 5 cases containing choriocarcinoma element was 40.0%, which was statistically worse than that (86.8%) of other histological types (p less than 0.05). These results suggest that the PVB therapy is not sufficient to cure the cases with choriocarcinoma element or bulky metastasis.