Rational approach for patients

Posted on July 2nd, 2009 by Canadian Health in Testicular Cancer

So what’s a rational approach for patients with stage I non-seminoma? For the low risk patient, surveillance if done well is appropriate, if the patient is compliant, if the physician is willing to do it. If there is a physician who is capable and experienced in performing a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, that’s a reasonable alternative for these patients. For high risk patients, it is generally preferable to do something rather than watch the patient, although surveillance is an alternative for these patients. Either retroperitoneal lymph node dissection or chemotherapy with two cycles of BEP is an appropriate strategy for such patients.
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Now if a patient who undergoes a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection is found to have disease in the lymph nodes, there are two approaches for these patients. One is observation, and as you can imagine, about 50% of these patients will relapse, or alternatively adjuvant chemotherapy is appropriate. Two cycles of BEP chemotherapy here will cure the vast majority of patients. These alternatives were based on a randomized study published over 10 years ago in the New England Journal, in which patients were randomized to either observation after finding pathological stage II disease, or adjuvant chemotherapy. The death rate comparable from testicular cancer, no statistical difference between these two subgroups.
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Now for patients with advanced cancer, advanced testicular cancer, chemotherapy is the standard of care. This just happens to be our series of 150 patients who were treated with chemotherapy. This slide is important to illustrate what one sees with chemotherapy, that is, about an 80% cure rate overall, across risk groups and that the majority of patients who fail will do so within the first couple of years. Although about 10-20% of patients who fail will do so beyond two years.
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There is now a consensus with regard to risk stratification of patients with advanced disease for seminomas and non-seminomas. This is in the hand-out, but let me just go through this briefly in the slides. For seminomas, patients are considered to have good prognosis if they have pure seminoma, no elevation of alpha-fetoprotein and the seminoma is arising from any site, either testicular or extra-gonadal, and there is no evidence of non-pulmonary visceral metastases. These patients will be cured almost 90% of the time with chemotherapy. Poor prognosis seminomas are those with non-pulmonary visceral metastases. These patients will be cured about 70% of the time.

Testicular cancer therapy

Posted on June 29th, 2009 by Canadian Health in Testicular Cancer

Now an alternative approach to patients with stage I non-seminoma is surveillance. This is a look at multiple studies in which patients with non-seminomas were observed, subsequently may have relapsed, and ultimately treated with chemotherapy. In this conglomerate of studies, as one would anticipate, about 28% of patients relapsed and ultimately with chemotherapy the majority of those patients are cured. Overall the results of surveillance, if done well, are very similar to a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. Viagra super active works faster and lasts longer than you’ve ever known. Typically if one watches a patient with stage I seminoma and they relapse, they will do so very quickly; 50% by five months, 80% by two years. You rarely see a relapse beyond two years, although it has been reported. Typically if they are watched closely, as they should be, they will relapse in a good-risk fashion and are highly likely to be cured. In general, they will relapse in the retroperitoneum more frequently than the chest and more frequently in both places. About 20% of patients will relapse with markers only and if they do, it’s appropriate to treat them with chemotherapy at that point.
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Now on the basis of the surveillance studies and the retroperitoneal lymph node dissection studies that have been published over the last 20 years, one can stratify patients into two basic subgroups; good risk patients and poor risk patients. Good risk patients are those patients that in their orchiectomy specimen have no lymphatic or venous invasion and have a relatively low proportion of embryonal carcinoma. Poorest patients are those with lymphatic invasion or a venous invasion and/or a high proportion of embryonal carcinoma. These patients will relapse with surveillance about 60% of the time. Patients without lymphatic or venous invasion and lower proportions of embryonal carcinoma will relapse about 20% of the time on surveillance.
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An alternative therapy for patients with stage I seminoma, which might be appropriate for patients who are in the high risk group is adjuvant chemotherapy. That is, chemotherapy when the markers are normal after orchiectomy. Now for high risk features, if patients have high risk features and a greater than 50% relapse, this is an appropriate alternative therapy. This has been proven now in three studies, one of which is shown here. This is a study from Great Britain in which 123 patients who had high risk features were treated with two cycles of platinum, VP-16 and bleomycin – which we will talk about – and ultimately 98% of the patients were cured in this particular study. Similar results were seen in the other two studies.
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Retroperitoneal Lymph Node

Posted on June 22nd, 2009 by Canadian Health in Testicular Cancer

The story is a lot more complicated for stage I non-seminomas where there are several choices involved in the treatment of these patients. And I just want to go through these briefly in some amount of detail. Surveillance, retroperitoneal lymph node dissection and chemotherapy are the three alternatives. The standard in the United States for many years, particularly before effective chemotherapy was developed for non-seminomas, was a so-called on-block peritoneal lymph node dissection. You can see the borders of this particular surgery, which involved a dissection of lymph nodes from above the renal hila to below the aortic bifurcation bilaterally. This was effective at staging patients and was also effective, in some cases, in actually curing patients. But it left all patients with retrograde ejaculation and infertility. So procedures were developed over the last 20 years to modify the procedures, to allow the contralateral nerve supply involved in ejaculation to be maintained. Ether a template procedure like this or a nerve identification procedure such that one can spare the nerves. With those procedures about 90% of patients with stage I testicular cancer will maintain antegrade ejaculation.
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Now how effective is the retroperitoneal lymph node dissection in curing patients with stage I testicular cancer? The largest study ever conducted was a multi-institution study called the Testicular Cancer Intergroup Study, conducted between 1979 and 1984 in which over 500 patients from multiple institutions underwent a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. In that study 284 patients were found to have pathological stage I disease. That is, they were found to have no involvement of the lymph nodes. In those patients, about 10% of the patients ultimately recurred, generally with supradiaphragmatic recurrences, pulmonary metastases and most of those patients were ultimately cured with chemotherapy. For stage I pathological testicular cancer, the mortality rate is 2%. Similar results are seen for patients who undergo a lymph node dissection, who are found to have involved lymph nodes. Pathological stage II disease. These patients subsequently may need chemotherapy and the cure rates in these patients is similarly 98%. So the results of retroperitoneal lymph node dissection are outstanding, 98% of patients with stage I disease will be cured.
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But if we look at how effective retroperitoneal lymph node dissection is at actually curing disease, one has to look at the studies in a little more detail. Look at the studies in which a retroperitoneal lymph node dissection was performed, disease was found in the lymph nodes, and no subsequent therapy was undertaken. What was the cure rate in those patients? Overall, the retroperitoneal lymph node dissection with no subsequent chemotherapy is curative about 50-60% of the time. The remainder of the time the patients will require chemotherapy. So if you think about the patients coming into the clinic with stage I non-seminomas, this is sort of what it looks like. Order canadian levitra 20 mg visa at cheap online pharmacy. If 100 patients come in with stage I non-seminoma and undergo retroperitoneal lymph node dissection, 70 of those patients will be found to have no evidence of disease. When they are found not to have any evidence of disease they are observed. Most of those patients will remain NED and cured of their disease. Seven or 10% of the patients will relapse, usually in the lung and will be cured with chemotherapy. There will be 30 patients out of 100 in whom disease will be detected in the lymph nodes and half of them will be cured with surgery alone. The remainder of patients will be cured with subsequent or immediate chemotherapy. We think that the patients who are best suited for no further chemotherapy are those patients who have minimal metastatic disease. That is, less than 5 lymph nodes involved with cancer and less than 2 cm of disease in any one lymph node.

Testicular Cancer Staging

Posted on June 16th, 2009 by Canadian Health in Testicular Cancer

The staging process involves some assessment of the abdomen, usually a CT scan. Some assessment of the chest which could be a chest x-ray or a chest CT scan, as well as serum markers. There’s probably no other disease where serum markers are as useful as in testicular cancer. One of the markers is the alpha-fetoprotein is elevated in about 50% of the cases. After an orchiectomy is performed, if the person has no residual disease, the alpha-fetoprotein will return to normal. It’s half life is anywhere between 5-7 days. The HCG is elevated in about 60% of tumors. In contrast to the alpha-fetoprotein the half life of HCG is much shorter, with a half life of about 24 hours. One or both of these markers are elevated in about 80% of tumors.
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This is the staging of testicular cancer. Stage I tumors are those tumors that are confined to within the testes, no evidence of metastatic disease and normal markers after orchiectomy. Stage II tumors are those in which there are involved retroperitoneal lymph nodes and the sub-staging of stage II is dependent upon the size of the lymph nodes involved. Stage III tumors are those that involve any other areas beyond the lymph nodes, particularly above the diaphragm.
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Now let’s talk about treatment of different subtypes of testicular cancer. First of all, stage I seminoma. Orchiectomy is performed. The pathologist says this is a pure seminoma. The alpha-fetoprotein has never been elevated. If the alpha-fetoprotein is elevated in the context of a seminoma it is categorically considered a non-seminoma. So for pure seminoma, stage I – that is, radiographically no evidence of disease – markers, HCG, have returned to normal – which can be elevated in about 10% of patients. The standard of care for these patients is infradiaphragmatic radiation in a hockey-stick distribution, to anywhere between 2500 and 3000 rads. Observation is an alternative to infradiaphragmatic radiation, although considering the high cure rate with radiation and low morbidity associated with radiation, it is considered a second alternative to radiation.

For stage II seminomas, that is, involvement of the lymph nodes, the treatment is dependent on the size of the lymph nodes. If the lymph node mass is solitary and is 5 cm or less the standard of care in the United States is radiation in a hockey-stick distribution with a boost of radiation to the lymph node mass of about 1,000 rads. For masses that are greater than 5 cm, chemotherapy is the standard of care.

Testicular Cancer

Posted on May 15th, 2009 by Canadian Health in Testicular Cancer

Testicular cancer is a relatively uncommon malignancy. There’s only about 7,000 cases per year in the United States, but it affects men at a young age. The peak incidence of testicular cancer is in the age group of 15-35. It’s highly curable. Nowadays about 90% of patients will be cured, crossing all stages. It’s a model malignancy because multi-modality therapy is used, as we’ll talk about. The cure rates for testicular cancer have improved dramatically over the past 30 years, increasing from 60-65% in the 60’s up to about 90% in the 1990’s. This is attributable to a few factors, probably the most important of which is the development of effective cisplatin-based chemotherapy for this disease. But improved awareness, better staging, and the institution of appropriate multi-modality therapy has also contributed to the improvement in outcomes.
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The etiology of testicular cancer is not known but there are several risk factors that are important. The most important of which is cryptorchidism. Cryptorchidism is seen in about 10% of patients with testicular cancer. When you see cryptorchidism there is anywhere from a five to fifty-fold increased risk of developing testicular cancer in that person’s lifetime. Interestingly, about 25% of the malignancies that occur in the context of cryptorchidism occur in the contralateral testicle. There are some interesting associations with testicular cancer. First of all, rarely do we see families with multiple members having testicular cancer. Testicular cancer can occur bilaterally in about 2-3% of patients, more commonly with seminoma than with non-seminoma. There is a distinct marker in the tumor associated with testicular cancer. It’s an isochromosome or a reduplication of the short arm of chromosome 12, 12P so there are three copies of P. This is seen in about 90% of testicular tumors. An interesting feature of testicular cancer is the relative absence of P53 mutations which may speak to the high chemo-sensitivity of this particular tumor. There is an association of testicular cancer, particularly mediastinal primaries, with Klinefelter’s syndrome as well as hematologic malignancies, in particular AML.
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A typical presentation of testicular cancer is painless enlargement of the testes, although pain may occur when there is bleeding within the testicle or rapid growth within the testicle. A testicular ultrasound is the most important test to do. It will distinguish an intratesticular mass from an extra-testicular mass 98% of the time. If in intratesticular mass is seen, it’s testicular cancer until proven otherwise. Once the diagnosis is established pathologically it’s important to sub-group these tumors. About two-thirds of these tumors are mixed tumors and the most common component of these mixed tumors is embryonal carcinoma. About one-third of these tumors are pure of one type or another, and the most common subtype that is pure is seminoma, which is treated as you’ll see distinctly from non-seminomas.
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So needle biopsy

Posted on April 3rd, 2009 by Canadian Health in Neck Mass

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So needle biopsy. At that point, if you are looking at a squamous cell or something that looks like epithelial, then they probably need some form of directed scope. Whether it’s a panendoscopy, which applies a rigid bronchoscopy, esophagoscopy and direct laryngoscopy, or whether you go just to direct laryngoscopy – which we do more and more – depending again on the physical exam. Whether you do biopsies or not, this is kind of becoming. I think most people do not do random or blind or guided biopsies unless you have a real high suspicion. So if we are faced with this patient, that we’ve got a fine needle they say is malignant, they’ve got a unilateral lymph node, what do we do with them? We take them to the operating room and we do a direct laryngoscopy. If we find something at the base of the tongue, hypopharynx, we biopsy it and we are done. We wake the patient up and then we need to have a discussion about what are your options, how can you be treated etc. Of course, this all has to be done ahead of time. If you don’t find anything then we proceed with an open neck biopsy and I draw out an incision for a neck dissection and then make that biopsy along the lines of my incision, make a small incision. If it’s epidermoid, if it’s a squamous cell carcinoma, then you are dealing with: you’ve done your direct laryngoscopy, you’ve looked at all the other sites, you’ve got your chest x-ray ahead of time and you’ve ruled those common things, then I go ahead and do a neck dissection on that patient. There’s no point in waking them up, giving them a second anesthetic, talking to them and bringing them back for a neck dissection because that’s what they are going to need. Then they are going to need radiation for an unknown primary. So we prepare our patients and do a neck dissection right at the time of the open biopsy. Get a frozen on it and proceed. If it’s lymphoma, then of course that’s not a surgical disease. You’ve got your tissue for stains and you close and wake the patient up.
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If it’s adenocarcinoma, then we never know what to do and we always hate them because if you’ve gotten your GI workup, your mammogram, all of those things ahead of time, then do you do a neck dissection assuming it’s an unknown primary salivary gland? You know, I usually do some form of modified neck dissection but I certainly wouldn’t fault anybody that just closed because it’s hard to know what to do at that point. Of course, if it’s inflammation granuloma then you press on. If they say it’s a lot of granuloma and infection and don’t see any specific organisms, you have them look for TB and those kinds of things. Sometimes you have to remove all those lymph nodes. Atypical TB, that’s still the treatment of choice in the patient who has had a chest x-ray that’s clear, that’s got only disease in the neck. And we’ll see one, maybe two of these a year and we conservatively remove those nodes. There are some better drugs for them now and they are being used more and more, but I think the more you get the disease out – if you are doing a very conservative modified neck where you are not doing anything too radical – that’s probably reasonable.
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CT and MRI should only be done when it’s going to change the management of that disease. So you really should know before you get the scan, exactly what you are dealing with. This is an oral cavity primary with a lymph node. I don’t need a CT. It’s money that’s wasted. Because I’m not going to do anything any different just based on the CT. If it’s a Larynx cancer then that’s different. I need a CT ahead of time because whether they have cartilage invasion or not is going to partially direct how we treat the patient. But I always say, only if it is going to change how you are going to manage that patient.