Primary spermatic cord tumors: disease characteristics, prognostic factors, and treatment outcomes

Experience with management of spermatic cord tumors (SCTs) is uncommon. We utilized a large population-based cancer registry to characterize the demographic, pathological, treatment characteristics, and outcomes of SCTs.

The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database (1973-2007) was queried.

From the database, 362 patients were identified with SCT. The annual incidence of SCT was 0.3 cases per million and did not change over time. The most common histologic types were liposarcoma (46%), leiomyosarcoma (20%), histiocytoma (13%), and rhabdomyosarcoma (9%). The median age of diagnosis for rhabdomyosarcomas was (26.3 y), whereas for other SCTs, it was (64.7 y) (P<0.001). On multivariate analysis, a worse outcome was observed with undifferentiated tumor grade, distant disease, positive lymph nodes, and leiomyosarcoma or histiocytoma cell histology.

We describe the largest cohort of SCT studied to date. Liposarcoma was most common, while leiomyosarcoma and histiocytoma histologic subtypes were observed to be the most aggressive. Multivariate analysis revealed that tumor grade, stage, histologic type, and lymph node involvement were independently predictive of prognosis.