Management of Testicular Cancer: 16 years' Experience from Southwest Finland

Objective: This study investigated the outcome of testicular cancer treatment in Finland. Material and methods: Data on 88 testicular cancer patients treated in Turku University Central Hospital between 1976 and 1992 were studied to analyse outcome and survival. Results: The histological diagnosis was seminoma for 39 patients and non-seminoma for 49 patients. Two seminoma patients relapsed (5%) and one patient died of progressive disease (3%; initially stage II seminoma). Eleven nonseminoma patients relapsed (22%), nine of whom were cured with chemotherapy. Four non-seminoma patients died of progressive disease (8%; initially one stage I non-seminoma and three stage III non-seminomas). The median time to relapse after the completion of treatment was 9 months (range 3-50 months). Non-seminoma patients had significantly more relapses than seminoma patients (p = 0.03). Most relapses (73% of the non-seminoma relapses) were found among the stage I nonseminoma patients who had not received adjuvant chemotherapy...