Study on the clinical outcomes of children with stage Ⅳ malignant extracranial germ cell tumors / 临床儿科杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the outcomes of children with stage Ⅳ malignant extracranial germ cell tumors. Methods Twenty-five patients were enrolled in the retrospective analysis. Event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) rates were estimated by Kaplan-Meier method with SPSS 13.0. Results Of the 25 children, there were 13 males and 12 females. The mean age at diagnosis was 2 years old (ranged 1 to 11). Five patients receiving chemotherapy in another hospital before (n=1), or giving up treatment after confirmed diagnosis (n=1), or giving up effective treatment after received less than 2 cycles (n=3) were excluded from this analysis. Of the 20 patients, 90.0% (18/20) achieved complete remission and 5.0% (1/20) achieved partial remission after treatment. The 5-year EFS rate and 5-year OS rate were 70.0%±10.2% and 82.4%±9.2% respectively. There was no death occurred due to complications. Conclusions The effect of this treatment program is positive. The cumulative dose of the drugs is not high, compared with other schemes such as PEB, but there are more drugs involved. Whether these drugs may cause long-term adverse reactions needs further research.