Recent progress in the treatment of seminoma

Effective treatment for seminoma of the testicle has improved markedly since the initial reports utilizing orthovoltage radiotherapy. Contributing to this progress have been the use of chemotherapy in advanced disease and the development of a staging system to predict outcome for patients treated with radiation therapy alone. Those groups of patients manifesting poor survival with radiation have benefited from cisplatin-based chemotherapy. At the present time, 80-100% of patients with limited disease and 60-80% of patients with more advanced disease will become long-term survivors. Areas requiring further investigation include the significance of elevated HCG, extragonadal primaries, residual radiographic abnormalities following chemotherapy, and the treatment of relapse after chemotherapy.