Chemotherapy Successful Treatment for Testicular Cancer
Reported July 22, 2005
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — A new study shows a single dose of the anticancer drug carboplatin is as successful and less toxic than previous testicular cancer treatments.
In the past, treatment for stage 1 seminoma — a cancer of the testes — has included removal of the cancerous testicle, or hemi-castration, and three weeks of radiation therapy. However, this was found to increase the patient’s risk of developing cardiovascular disease and cancer in other organs.
Lead researcher Tim Oliver, M.D., of St. Bartholomew’s and The London School of Medicine in London, and colleagues studied radiotherapy and the chemotherapy treatments of 1,477 patients with stage 1 seminoma. Of the participants, 543 were assigned a single dose of the chemotherapy agent, while 904 underwent radiation therapy.
After three years, the study revealed a similarity between the carboplatin and radiotherapy, 95.4 percent vs. 96.6 percent, respectively. The five-year marker showed the patients who received the carboplatin were not as likely to grow a tumor in their remaining testicle.
“This large randomized trial finally establishes after 20 years of research and uncertainty that it is safe to risk less treatment in these patients,” says Oliver. “We found that one dose of carboplatin in the short term is as safe as radiation and is less toxic. Patients assigned to chemotherapy also had fewer seminomas occurring in the remaining testis than those receiving radiotherapy.”
Oliver added that while more testing needs to be done to confirm this finding, it may indicate that is safe to begin testing testis conservation rather than hemi-castration.
SOURCE: The Lancet, 2005;366:267-300
