Peritoneal carcinosis in male germ cell tumor patients: a registry study compiled by the German Testicular Cancer Study Group (GTCSG)

PURPOSE: To report on the clinical characteristics, outcome, and frequency of peritoneal carcinosis (PC) in patients with advanced germ cell tumors (GCT), a multicenter registry analysis was carried out. METHODS: A multicenter registry analysis was conducted by the German Testicular Cancer Study Group (GTCSG) with international collaborators. Data was collected and analyzed retrospectively. Patients were eligible for inclusion if PC was diagnosed either by radiologic or histopathologic finding during the course of disease. Descriptive and explorative statistical analysis was carried out with cancer-specific survival (CSS) as primary study endpoint. RESULTS: Collaborators from ten GCT expert centers identified 28 GCT (0.77%) patients with PC after screening approximately 3767 GCT patient files and one case was contributed from a cancer registry request. Patients were diagnosed from 1997 to 2019 at a median age of 37 years (interquartile range, 13). Two patients (7%) presented with stage I and 27 patients (93%) with synchronous metastatic disease at first diagnosis. The primary histology was seminoma in seven (27%) and non-seminoma in 21 patients (72%). PC was detected after a median of 15.3 months from primary diagnosis (range 0–177) and two consecutive treatment lines (range 0–5), respectively. The median CSS from the time of detection of PC was 10.5 months (95%Confidence Interval 0.47–1.30) associated with an overall 2-year CSS rate of 30%. CONCLUSION: PC represents a rare tumor manifestation in GCT patients and was primarily associated with the occurrence of advanced cisplatin-refractory disease conferring to a dismal prognosis.