ABSTRACT

The contemporary treatment of testicular germ cell tumors has resulted in survival rates of greater than 90% overall, but still 10% of the cases are relapsing and 4/10 of these relapses occur at 2 to 30 years from the diagnosis of the primary tumor.

Up to 80% of of these relapses occur in the retroperitoneum and teratoma seems to play an important role in late relapses. These tumors are chemorefractory, especially if already given chemotherapy and the prognosis is poor with survival rates of approximately 30% to 40%. Surgery is the only effective treatment modality for resectable tumors at late relapse and surgical control of the retroperitoneum at the diagnosis of the primary tumor may prevent the occurrence of late relapse.

In this review, we present the recent data regarding the incidence, patient characteristics, risk factors and the treatment modalities for the patients with late relapse of germ cell tumors.