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Treatment strategy for intracranial primary pure germinoma

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Abstract

Object

This prospective randomized clinical study will address the efficacy of radiation (RT)-alone and combined with pre-RT chemotherapy (CTX) treatments and propose the novel standard treatment strategy for intracranial primary pure germinoma.

Materials and methods

Between 2005 and 2008, there were 54 patients diagnosed with intracranial primary pure germinomas in a single institute. Twenty-eight patients were enrolled. The mean age of the patients was 16.2 years (range 6–31 years). There were 19 men and 9 women (men/women ratio = 2.1:1). There were 21 patients with solitary tumors and 7 with multiple tumors. These patients were randomized as RT-only treatment group (11 solitary and 3 multiple tumors) and combined (10 solitary and 4 multiple tumors, neo-adjuvant CTX followed by response-adapted RT) treatment group. The follow-up period for RT only group has a median of 58 months (mean 58.2 months, range 41–82 months), and for combine therapy group, the median was 68.5 months (mean 67.8 months, range 41–88 months). All 14 patients in the RT-only group showed complete response (CR) and no recurrence. Eleven patients in the combined group had CR and three patients had partial response after neo-adjuvant CTX. All patients responded to RT as CR without recurrence. At the time of analysis, all 28 patients were alive without evidence of disease.

Conclusion

Neo-adjuvant CTX for localized germinomas seems to be unnecessary as a method to reduce radiation dose in our RT protocol. However, the effective control of multifocal or disseminated germinoma can be achieved by neo-adjuvant CTX followed by response-adapted reduced dose RT.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by a grant from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the National Cancer Control Planning Board at the National Cancer Center in Korea (study no. 7-2012-0326) and Yonsei University, College of Medicine (6-2008-0117).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pediatric Neurosurgery in Severance Children’s Hospital, Brain Korea 21 Project for Medical Science, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea

    Kyu-Won Shim, Eun Kyung Park & Dong-Seok Kim

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, National Health Insurance Corporation, Ilsan Hospital, Goyang, South Korea

    Yoon-Ho Lee

  3. Department of Radiation Oncology, Yonsei Cancer Center, Yonsei University Health System, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea

    Chang-Ok Suh & Jaeho Cho

  4. Department of Neurosurgery, CHA Bundang Medical Center, CHA University, Sungnam, South Korea

    Joong-Uhn Choi

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Shim, KW., Park, E.K., Lee, YH. et al. Treatment strategy for intracranial primary pure germinoma. Childs Nerv Syst 29, 239–248 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00381-012-1902-x

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