Primary testicular tumors in children

Twenty-six primary testicular tumors in children (less than 15 years old) seen within a period of nine years (1978-1986) were analyzed. Of these, 16 (61.5%) were benign mature or immature teratomas and ten (38.5%) malignant. This is obviously different from most of the western series in which a 75-80% rate of malignancy has usually been reported. Sixteen benign testicular tumors, which were either mature or immature teratomas, showed no evidence of tumor one to nine years after high inguinal orchiectomy. Serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) levels were available in 14 of these patients and all of them were below 50 ng/ml. In the ten malignant tumors, eight were yolk sac tumors and two embryonal rhabdomyosarcomas. High inguinal orchiectomy only was performed for stage I disease with sequential monitoring of AFP level for two years. For stage II or III tumors, chemotherapy and/or irradiation were added in the treatment regimen. Retroperitoneal node dissections were not performed in this series. Eight out of these ten cases were alive without evidence of disease after one to seven years, one expired for an unknown cause and one was lost to follow-up. We advocate this conservative approach to childhood testicular tumors which have a better outcome than adult tumors.