[Recent advances in the treatment of choriocarcinoma]

Recent advances in intensive care procedures have improved the therapeutic results of choriocarcinoma treatment. The mortality of patients with choriocarcinoma, which was 100% in 1958, has gradually decreased, and finally fell to about 10% in 1983. These favorable results have been mainly due to the progress made in chemotherapy, including combined administration of methotrexate and actinomycin-D. However, recent progress has been chiefly dependent on intensive care procedures, involving so-called multidisciplinary treatment, including surgical treatment for pulmonary or intracranial metastatic foci and whole-brain irradiation. When the treatment results for choriocarcinoma were compared between metastatic and non-metastatic cases, the mortality, which had decreased for both groups with time, had already reached 0% in non-metastatic cases, although it was still about 20% in metastatic cases. These results have made it clear that the most important aspect is how to treat choriocarcinoma metastatic foci. With the goal of finding some form of treatment that will help to attain complete cure of choriocarcinoma, we present here details of recent progress made in choriocarcinoma treatment.