Outcome of Men With Relapses After Adjuvant Bleomycin, Etoposide, and Cisplatin for Clinical Stage I Nonseminoma.

purposeClinical stage I (CSI) nonseminoma (NS) is a disease limited to the testis without metastases. One treatment strategy after orchiectomy is adjuvant chemotherapy. Little is known about the outcome of patients who experience relapse after such treatment. PATIENTS AND

methodsData from 51 patients with CSI NS who experienced a relapse after adjuvant bleomycin, etoposide, and cisplatin (BEP) from 18 centers/11 countries were collected and retrospectively analyzed. Primary outcomes were overall and progression-free survivals calculated from day 1 of treatment at first relapse. Secondary outcomes were time to, stage at, and treatment of relapse and rate of subsequent relapses.

resultsMedian time to relapse was 13 months, with the earliest relapse 2 months after start of adjuvant treatment and the latest after 25 years. With a median follow-up of 96 months, the 5-year PFS was 67% (95% CI, 54% to 82%) and the 5-year OS was 81% (95% CI, 70% to 94%). Overall, 19 (37%) of 51 relapses occurred later than 2 years. Late relapses were associated with a significantly higher risk of death from NS (hazard ratio, 1.10 per year;

conclusionOutcomes of patients with relapse after adjuvant BEP seem better compared with patients who experience relapse after treatment of metastatic disease but worse compared with those who have de-novo metastatic disease. We found a substantial rate of late and subsequent relapses. There seem to be three patterns of relapse with different outcomes: pure teratoma, early viable NS relapse (< 2 years), and late viable NS relapse (> 2 years).