Abstract
Late relapse of testis cancer is defined as recurrence of disease 2 years or more after initial successful complete remission. The management of late relapse does not follow standard models developed for early recurrences, and should be so recognized by any physician managing these patients. While systemic disease at initial presentation sometimes involves chemotherapy, late relapse (LR) patients do not respond similarly to medical therapy making management more surgically based. With an incidence of approximately 4–5% (range one to ten percent), cases of LR have been observed occurring up to 35 years after successful treatment for germ cell tumor (GCT) (Borge et al. 1988; Baniel et al. 1995a; Gerl et al. 1997; Shahidi et al. 2002; Chung and Warde 2006; Oldenburg et al. 2006). Seminomatous GCT and nonseminomatous GCT (NSGCT) follow different natural histories and recurrence patterns with regard to LR. While the treatment of LR in chemotherapy naïve seminoma patients is straight forward, the management of LR for NSGCT and chemotherapy-exposed seminoma patients is more complicated.
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Maroni, P.D., Honecker, F.U., Foster, R.S. (2011). Management of Late Relapse. In: Laguna, M., Albers, P., Bokemeyer, C., Richie, J. (eds) Cancer of the Testis. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-370-5_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84800-370-5_19
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