National survey of patterns of care for testis cancer

A national survey of testicular cancer documented recent trends in disease characteristics, treatment, and outcome, providing a basis for progress being achieved on a community basis. A long-term study of 3285 patients diagnosed between 1970 and 1975 was compared with a short-term study of 1887 patients diagnosed in 1983. An increase of the symptom of a lump in the testis from 23.1% to 31.2% and a mass as a sign of cancer from 44.5% to 53.8% suggests earlier detection of testis cancer by the patient and physician. Changes in the methods of diagnosis reflect the changing technology of tumor diagnosis. The 10-year survival rates for pathologic Stage I seminoma (82.6% of all seminomas) exceeded 96%. For pathologic Stage I nonseminomatous germ cell tumors (51.7% of all NSGCT), 10-year survival was 87.1%; whereas for Stage III (18.7% of all NSGCT) it was 22.1%. The impact of the important advances in chemotherapy is reflected in the increase of 1-year survival of Stage III NSGCT from 50.5% to 78.4%. Testis cancer can be cured in most patients.