Testicular seminoma: analysis of treatment and failure for stage II disease

Seventy-three patients with seminoma testis stage II have been retrospectively analyzed with regard to prognostic factors and value of prophylactic mediastinal irradiation and chemotherapy. Although survival differences were seen between stage IIa, IIb and IIc, these were not statistically significant. Neither was there a significant difference between IIc patients with tumors greater than 10 cm and less than 10 cm in diameter. The incidence of HCG-producing seminomas in the present series was 16%. No significant difference in survival nor relapse rate was found between HCG-producing and HCG-non-producing seminomas. Prophylactic mediastinal irradiation did not influence the survival nor the relapse rate and may therefore be omitted. In the present series there was no significant improvement neither in relapse rate nor survival in patients receiving pre-irradiation chemotherapy. However, the total number of patients is small and optimal pre-irradiation chemotherapy still have to be defined.