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. 2016 Sep 13;7(37):60665-60675.
doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.10218.

Treatment of primary intracranial germ cell tumors: Single center experience with 42 clinically diagnosed cases

Qun-Ying Yang  1 , Cheng-Cheng Guo  1 , Mei-Ling Deng  2 , Jian Wang  1 , Jing Wang  1 , Fu-Hua Lin  1 , Ji Zhang  1 , Xiao-Bing Jiang  1 , Yong-Gao Mou  1 , Zhong-Ping Chen  1
Affiliations

Treatment of primary intracranial germ cell tumors: Single center experience with 42 clinically diagnosed cases

Qun-Ying Yang et al. Oncotarget. .

Abstract

Background and objective: Primary intracranial germ cell tumors (GCTs) are a class of heterogeneous tumors. Surgery can quickly relieve tumor compression and provide histological diagnosis. It is very difficult to treat some patients who are unable to be pathologically diagnosed. We aimed to analyze clinically diagnosed GCTs patients.

Methods: Patients clinically diagnosed as primary intracranial GCTs were included in this study.

Results: From 2002 to 2015, 42 patients clinically diagnosed with primary intracranial GCTs received chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Patients were assigned to diagnostic chemotherapy group (25 cases), diagnostic radiotherapy group (5 cases) and gamma knife radiosurgery group (12 cases) based on their initial anti-tumor therapy. The 5-year survival rates were 85.8%, 75.0% and 63.6%, respectively. There were no statistically significant difference (p value = 0.44). Patients were assigned to the group (30 cases) with secretory tumors and the group (12 cases) with non-secretory tumors based on their levels of tumor makers. The 5- year survival rates were 80.7% and 68.6%, respectively. There were no statistically significant difference (p value = 0.49).The major adverse reactions were grade III - IV bone marrow suppression with an incidence of 35.2% and grade II- III nausea/vomiting with an incidence of 45.8%.

Conclusion: Surgical removal of tumor or biopsy is recognized as the most accurate method to determine the pathological property of tumor. But for some patients who can not be pathologically diagnosed, they can receive comprehensive treatments such as chemotherapy combined with radiotherapy, and some of them can still have good responses.

Keywords: clinical diagnosis; diagnostic chemotherapy; diagnostic radiotherapy; primary intracranial germ cell tumor.

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Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

All authors claimed that there is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Kaplan-Meier survival Kaplan curves for Overall Survival of 42 cases
Figure 2
Figure 2. Kaplan-Meier survival Kaplan curves for Progression-free Survival of 42 cases
Figure 3
Figure 3. Comparison of survival curves among patients in diagnostic chemotherapy group, radiotherapy group and gamma knife radiosurgery group (P = 0.44)
Figure 4
Figure 4. Comparison of survival curves between patients with secretory tumors and patients with non-secretory tumors (P = 0.49)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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