scholarly journals A pragmatic diagnostic approach to primary intracranial germ cell tumors and their treatment outcomes

CNS Oncology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeyaanth Venkatasai ◽  
Rajesh Balakrishnan ◽  
Balakrishnan Rajkrishna ◽  
Patricia Sebastain ◽  
Rikki Rorima John ◽  
...  

Background: Primary intracranial germ cell tumors (ICGCT) are often diagnosed with tumor markers and imaging, which may avoid the need for a biopsy. An intracranial germ cell tumor with mild elevation of markers is seldom stratified as a distinct entity. Methods: Fifty-nine patients were stratified into three groups: pure germinoma (PG), secreting germinoma (SG) and non-germinomatous germ cell tumors (NGGCTs). Results: At 5 years, progression-free survival and overall survival of the three groups (PG vs SG vs NGGCT) were 91% versus 81% versus 59%, and 100% versus 82% versus 68%, respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in outcome among histologically and clinically diagnosed germinomas. Conclusion: A criterion for clinical diagnosis when a biopsy is not feasible is elucidated, and comparable outcomes were demonstrated with histologically diagnosed germinomas.

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (21) ◽  
pp. 2478-2483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darren R. Feldman ◽  
James Hu ◽  
Tanya B. Dorff ◽  
Kristina Lim ◽  
Sujata Patil ◽  
...  

Purpose Paclitaxel, ifosfamide, and cisplatin (TIP) achieved complete responses (CRs) in two thirds of patients with advanced germ cell tumors (GCTs) who relapsed after first-line chemotherapy with cisplatin and etoposide with or without bleomycin. We tested the efficacy of first-line TIP in patients with intermediate- or poor-risk disease. Patients and Methods In this prospective, multicenter, single-arm phase II trial, previously untreated patients with International Germ Cell Cancer Collaborative Group poor-risk or modified intermediate-risk GCTs received four cycles of TIP (paclitaxel 240 mg/m2 over 2 days, ifosfamide 6 g/m2 over 5 days with mesna support, and cisplatin 100 mg/m2 over 5 days) once every 3 weeks with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor support. The primary end point was the CR rate. Results Of the first 41 evaluable patients, 28 (68%) achieved a CR, meeting the primary efficacy end point. After additional accrual on an extension phase, total enrollment was 60 patients, including 40 (67%) with poor risk and 20 (33%) with intermediate risk. Thirty-eight (68%) of 56 evaluable patients achieved a CR and seven (13%) achieved partial responses with negative markers (PR-negative) for a favorable response rate of 80%. Five of seven achieving PR-negative status had seminoma and therefore did not undergo postchemotherapy resection of residual masses. Estimated 3-year progression-free survival and overall survival rates were 72% (poor risk, 63%; intermediate risk, 90%) and 91% (poor risk, 87%; intermediate risk, 100%), respectively. Grade 3 to 4 toxicities consisted primarily of reversible hematologic or electrolyte abnormalities, including neutropenic fever in 18%. Conclusion TIP demonstrated efficacy as first-line therapy for intermediate- and poor-risk GCTs with an acceptable safety profile. Given higher rates of favorable response, progression-free survival, and overall survival compared with prior first-line studies, TIP warrants further study in this population.


2012 ◽  
Vol 30 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 4531-4531 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter S. Grimison ◽  
Mark D. Chatfield ◽  
Danish Mazhar ◽  
Guy C. Toner ◽  
John D. Chester ◽  
...  

4531 Background: Standard chemotherapy for advanced germ cell tumors is 3-weekly BEP (bleomycin, etoposide, cisplatin). 5-year overall survival is > 90% in good risk disease, but only ~80% in intermediate and ~ 60% in poor risk disease. Accelerated versions of standard regimens have proven more effective in other malignancies. We aimed to determine tolerability and activity of accelerated (2-weekly) BEP by combining data from two single arm, multi-center, phase I/II trials. Methods: The UK trial (n=16) included patients with intermediate and poor risk metastatic germ cell tumours. The Australian trial (n=45) also included patients with radiologically measurable good risk disease. BEP chemotherapy was repeated every 2 weeks for 4 cycles (3 cycles for good risk). The Australian and UK regimens differed for cisplatin (20mg/m2 D1-5; 50mg/m2 D1-2), etoposide (100mg/m2 D1-5; 165mg/m2 D1-3), bleomycin (30kIU weekly x 12 or 9; 30kIU at 4-6 day intervals x 12), and pegylated G-CSF (6mg D6; 6mg D4) respectively. Primary endpoint for combined analysis was 2-year progression-free survival. Results: 61 patients were enrolled from 2004-09 (UK) and 2008-10 (Australia). 17 had poor risk, 28 intermediate risk, 16 good risk disease. Median follow-up is 27 months (range 6 to 81). Adverse events are presented in the table. 45 of 61 patients (74%) achieved a complete response to chemotherapy +/- surgery (9 of 17 poor risk (53%), 20 of 28 intermediate risk (71%), 16 of 16 good risk disease (100%)). 11 of 61 patients have relapsed. 2 patients have died of disease (both intermediate risk). 2 year overall survival is 98%. 2 year progression-free survival is 65% for poor risk, 86% for intermediate risk, and 92% for good risk disease. Conclusions: Efficacy data are promising, particularly for intermediate and poor risk disease. Adverse events appear comparable to standard BEP. These results provide the rationale for an international trial randomised trial comparing accelerated and standard versions of BEP. [Table: see text]


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (Supplement_6) ◽  
pp. vi216-vi216
Author(s):  
Linbo Cai ◽  
Mingyao Lai ◽  
Juan Li ◽  
Cheng Zhou ◽  
Qingjun Hu ◽  
...  

Abstract OBJECTIVES To evaluate the potential role of emergency radiotherapy in intracranial germ cell tumors GCTs) patients with KPS ≤ 40. METHODS A total of 27 primary intracranial germ cell tumors (GCTs) patients with KPS ≤ 40 between Jan 2007 and Dec 2018 were retrospectively evaluated. The median age at initial diagnosis was 15 years (range, 528 years). Among those, 11 patients were germinoma and 16 patients were nonseminomatous germ-cell tumors (NGGCTs). There were 9 solitary pineal, 5 suprasellar, 3 basal ganglia and 10 multifocal and disseminated tumors. All patients received emergency radiotherapy (2 Gy/fx/d). Prior to radiotherapy, 11 patients were manifested with hydrocephalus, 10 with hypopituitarism and 5 with intracranial tumo apoplexy. RESULTS The average follow up time was 44.4 months. The 5 year progression free survival rate and overall survival rate were 29.6% and 33.3%. The median overall survival time was 38 months. In particular, the median intracranial hypertension symptoms relief time was 2 days. The median KPS following radiotherapy was 80 comparing to 30 prior to radiotherapy (P < 0.05). A significant improvement on KPS of 46.7±27.3 was observed in this study. CONCLUSION Emergency radiotherapy is implicated as a promising intervention for GCTs patients with elevated intracranial pressure (ICP). These advantages can be interpreted as direct cell killing effect and fast tumor shrinkage by ionizing radiation. However, to substantiate our findings, further investigations were highly warranted.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Hirokazu Takami ◽  
Avital Perry ◽  
Christopher S. Graffeo ◽  
Caterina Giannini ◽  
Yoshitaka Narita ◽  
...  

OBJECTIVECentral nervous system (CNS) germ cell tumors (GCTs) are rare malignant neoplasms that arise predominantly in adolescents and young adults. CNS GCTs demonstrate characteristic trends in national associations, with implications for both tumor incidence and genetics. Although the incidence of CNS GCTs is markedly higher in East Asia than Western countries, direct comparative analyses between these CNS GCT populations are limited.METHODSIn Japan, to facilitate the genomic analyses of CNS GCTs, the Intracranial Germ Cell Tumor Genome Analysis Consortium was established in 2011, and more than 200 cases of GCTs are available for both tumor tissue and clinical data, which is organized by the National Cancer Center (NCC) Japan. At the Mayo Clinic, there have been 98 cases of intracranial GCTs treated by the Department of Neurologic Surgery since 1988. In this paper, the authors compared the epidemiology, clinical presentation including location and histology, and prognosis between cases treated in the US and Japan.RESULTSThere was no significant difference in age and sex distributions between the databases. However, there was a significant difference in the tumor locations; specifically, the frequency of basal ganglia was higher in the NCC database compared with the Mayo Clinic (8.4% vs 0%, p = 0.008), and bifocal location (neurohypophysis and pineal gland) was higher at the Mayo Clinic than at the NCC (18.8% vs 5.8%, p = 0.002). There was no difference in histological subdivisions between the databases. There was no difference in progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) of germinoma cases and OS of nongerminomatous GCT (NGGCT) cases treated with chemotherapy and radiation therapy covering whole ventricles. However, PFS of NGGCTs differed significantly, and was better in the NCC cohorts (p = 0.04).CONCLUSIONSThere appears to be a differential distribution of GCTs by neuroanatomical location between major geographic and national groups. Further study is warranted to better characterize any underlying genomic, epigenetic, or environmental factors that may be driving the phenotypic differences.


Neurosurgery ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 802-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eiji Kumura ◽  
Norio Arita ◽  
Toru Hayakawa ◽  
Yukitaka Ushio ◽  
Hiroyuki Nakata ◽  
...  

Abstract We found combination chemotherapy with cisplatinum, vinblastine, and bleomycin (PVB therapy) effective in the treatment of a patient with a pineal germ cell tumor with peritoneal dissemination. The metastatic complication may have been attributable to the ventriculoperitoneal shunt tube. After the first course of PVB therapy, the disseminated tumors were decreased in size; no residual tumors were detected after the third course by laparoscopic examination, computed tomographic scanning, or echogram. Our results suggest that combined PVB therapy is effective in the treatment of extraneural metastasis from intracranial germ cell tumors. (18:802-804, 1986)


Author(s):  
Yang Wang ◽  
Jun Nie ◽  
Ling Dai ◽  
Weiheng Hu ◽  
Jie Zhang ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The combination of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor and chemotherapy has been clinically confirmed to be beneficial as the first-line treatment of patients with advanced NSCLC. This study aimed to assess the effect of nivolumab + docetaxel versus nivolumab monotherapy in patients with NSCLC after the failure of platinum doublet chemotherapy. Materials and methods The efficacy and toxicity of nivolumab + docetaxel combination therapy versus nivolumab monotherapy were compared in this retrospective study. Primary endpoint of the study was progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoints were objective response rate (ORR), overall survival (OS), and toxicity. Results Between November 2017 and December 2019, 77 patients were included in this study, with 58 patients in the nivolumab group and 19 in the nivolumab + docetaxel group. The median follow-up was 18 months, and the PFS was 8 months for patients receiving nivolumab + docetaxel and 2 months for those receiving nivolumab alone (p = 0.001), respectively. Nivolumab + docetaxel showed superior OS compared with nivolumab, with the median OS unreached versus 7 months (p = 0.011). Among patients without EGFR/ALK variation, compared to nivolumab monotherapy, nivolumab + docetaxel showed better PFS (p = 0.04) and OS (p  = 0.05). There was no significant difference in grade 3–4 adverse events (AEs) between the two groups (p = 0.253). Conclusions The combination of nivolumab and docetaxel demonstrated a meaningful improvement in progression-free survival and overall survival compared to nivolumab monotherapy, in patients with NSCLC after the failure of platinum doublet chemotherapy, irrespective of EGFR/ALK variation status.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. ii57-ii57
Author(s):  
Qingjun Hu ◽  
Juan Li ◽  
Mingyao Lai ◽  
Cheng Zhou ◽  
Zhaoming Zhou ◽  
...  

Abstract OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical factors related to the prognosis of basal ganglia germ cell tumors. METHODS A retrospective analysis of 52 cases of the basal ganglia germ cell tumors treated from January 2009 to January 2019 in the department of oncology of Guangdong Sanjiu Brain Hospital. The median age: 12 years (range: 5–32), The median course of disease: 11.7 months (range: 1–54). Thirteen cases were diagnosed by biopsy and 39 cases were diagnosed by elevated tumor markers. There were 31 patients (59.6%) diagnosed with germinomas and 21 patients (40.4%) with non-germ germ cell tumors. Univariate and multivariate survival analysis was performed. RESULTS To October 15, 2019, the median follow-up time was 30.4 months (range 2–124 months). The 5-year survival rate was 85%, and the 5-year progression-free survival rate was 84%. Multivariate analysis found whether serum AFP was greater than 100mIU / ml, (with HR: 11.441,95% CI: 2.09–47.66, P = 0.005),the degree of surgical resection(with HR 5.323 (1.19–23.812), P = 0.029), PD as the effect of radiotherapy (HR: 16.53, (1.19–23.81), P = 0.001) were independent prognostic factor affecting survival. CONCLUSION The pathological type, degree of surgical resection, and response to initial treatment can all affect survival.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serkan Yıldırım ◽  
Atike Pınar ERDOĞAN ◽  
Cengiz Yılmaz ◽  
Ferhat Ekinci ◽  
Gülcan Bulut ◽  
...  

Abstract İNTRODUCTİONIn this study, we aim to determine which treatment is more appropriate in castration-resistant chemotherapy-naive patients. Therefore, docetaxel and agents active in the androgen pathway (abiraterone and enzalutamide) were compared retrospectively in patients progressing on ADT.MATERİAL METHODThe study was designed as a retrospective and multi-center study. Patients from 5 centers in Turkey were included in the study. The primary endpoint of the study was ovreall survival and the secondary endpoint was progression-free survival.RESULTSMedian overall survival of the chemotherapy group was 18.66 months, it was 16.26 months in the hormonal treatment group. There was no statistically significant difference between the groups (p = 0.311). Median progression-free survival of the chemotherapy group was 5.6 months, while it was 9 months in the hormonal therapy group. There was statistically significant difference between the groups (p = 0.024).CONCLUSİONThere was statistical difference in progression-free survival in favor of hormonal therapies in our study. The difference did not reflect on overall survival and there was no difference between hormonal therapies and docetaxel. Heterogeneity in the selection of patients is considered to lead to this result; however, larger randomized controlled studies are needed to determine the most appropriate treatment in these patients.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (Supplement_2) ◽  
pp. ii23-ii23
Author(s):  
Kaishi Satomi ◽  
Hirokazu Takami ◽  
Shintaro Fukushima ◽  
Yoichi Nakazato ◽  
Shota Tanaka ◽  
...  

Abstract BACKGROUND Gain of short arm of chromosome 12 (12p) is commonly observed in testicular germ cell tumors (tGCTs). 12p gain is also frequently seen in intracranial GCTs (iGCTs). However, little is known about the clinical significance of 12p gain in iGCTs. MATERIALS AND METHODS We have collected over 200 fresh frozen tissue samples of iGCTs through the Intracranial Germ Cell Tumor Genome Analysis Consortium in Japan. Firstly, we analyzed DNA methylation status in 83 iGCTs, 3 seminomas and 6 normal control samples using Infinium Human Methylation 450K BeadChip array (Illumina, CA). Idat files were processed using R (Version 3.5.3) and minfi package (1.30.0) to generate copy number variations. Compared with average genome-wide copy number level, 12p gain was determined. Then, 58 iGCTs with clinicopathological information were analyzed for progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Those tumors that consist of only either germinoma and/or mature teratoma components were classified as Favorable Histology (FH) and all the others that contains malignant histological components were classified as Unfavorable Histology (UFH). RESULT 12p gain was observed in 100% (3/3) of seminoma, 13.6% (3/22) of germinoma, 16.7% (1/6) of mature teratoma, 25% (1/4) of immature teratoma, 55% (11/20) of mixed germ cell tumor, 100% (4/4) of yolk sac tumor, 100% (1/1) of embryonal carcinoma, and 100% (1/1) of choriocarcinoma. In total, 44.6% (37/83) of iGCT showed 12p gain. Regarding histological classification, the 12p gain rate in UFH (72%, 18/25) was significantly higher than that in FH (12.1%, 4/33, P&lt;0.01). Both PFS and OS were significantly worse in iGCTs with 12p gain (PFS: P=0.027, OS: P=0.0012). DISCUSSION 12p gain can be a molecular marker to predict prognosis and histological malignancy in iGCTs.


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