A 10-year retrospective review of germ cell tumors not cured with cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

Abstract

325 Background: In 2011, there were about 8260 cases of Germ Cell Tumor (GCT) diagnosed in the US, of those, 350 or 4% will die of their disease. We sought to review our experience with a 10-year cohort of 819 patients treated for GCT at Dana-Farber and synthesize the cumulative findings of those who died from their disease specifically looking for different sub-types of incurable GCTs. Methods: Retrospective review of 819 germ-cell tumors treated in our center between 2000 and 2010 to identify patients not cured with cisplatin-based chemotherapy. Inclusion criteria were men over the age of 18 treated for malignant germ cell tumor between 2000 and 2010 at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that died from their disease. The outcomes of interest were smoking history, extent of disease at diagnosis, primary site of disease, histology, presence of lymphovascular invasion, outcomes to first- and second-line therapies, treatment with high dose chemotherapy (HDC), late relapse, brain metastases, and presence or absence of transformed teratoma as cause of death. Results: 38 men were identified. Median age 35. More than half had a smoking history. 3 presented with clinical stage 1 disease, 8 good-risk metastatic disease, 4 intermediate-risk and 22 poor-risk at diagnosis. The majority (28) had testicular primaries, 7 mediastinal, one pituitary, one retroperitoneal and one unknown. 21 of 48 had complete responses to first-line therapy. 4 received HDC for relapsed disease. 10 relapsed after 2 years of disease-free survival. 7 died of transformed teratoma. 63% progressed directly through cisplatin-based chemotherapy and died as a result of non-teratomatous germ cell tumor burden. 18% died from unresectable or transformed teratoma and 26% died after suffering a late relapse of disease. Conclusions: Within the cohort of patient who died from their GCTs there are three distinct biological subtypes – the majority is platinum-refractory germ cell tumor while unresectable/transformed teratoma and late relapse make up the remainder. Understanding the unique biology of these disease states compared with curable disease may provide informative insights into chemotherapy resistance for cancer in general.