Germ cell tumors (GCTs) are the most common solid malignancies in young men. The overall cure rate of GCT patients in metastatic stage is excellent, however; patients with relapsed or refractory disease have poor prognosis. Attempts to treat refractory disease with novel effective treatment to improve prognosis have been historically dismal and the ability to predict prognosis and treatment response in GCTs did not sufficiently improve in the last three decades.
We performed a comprehensive literature search of PubMed/MEDLINE to identify original and review articles (years 1964-2020) reporting on current improvement salvage treatment in GCTs and novel treatment options including molecularly targeted therapy and epigenetic approach. Review articles were further searched for additional original articles.
Despite multimodal treatment approaches the treatment of relapsed or platinum-refractory GCTs remains a challenge. High-dose chemotherapy (HDCT) regimens with autologous stem-cell transplant (ASCT) from peripheral blood showed promising results in larger retrospective studies. Promising results from in vitro studies raised high expectations in molecular targets. So far, the lacking efficacy in small and unselected trials do not shed a light on targeted therapy. Currently, wide inclusion of patients into clinical trials is highly advised.
Expert review of anticancer therapy. 2020 Nov 02 [Epub ahead of print]
Kristyna Kozakova, Michal Mego, Liang Cheng, Michal Chovanec
Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, National Cancer Institute , Bratislava, Slovakia., 2nd Department of Oncology, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University and National Cancer Institute , Bratislava, Slovakia., Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine , Indianapolis, IN, USA.