Long-Term Outcome of Patients with Relapsed and Refractory Germ Cell Tumors Treated with High-Dose Chemotherapy and Autologous Bone Marrow Rescue

Abstract

Treatment with high-dose carboplatin and etoposide in conjunction with autologous bone marrow rescue in patients with relapsed or refractory germ cell tumors is a potentially curative therapeutic option, even for heavily pretreated or cisplatin-refractory patients. Some degree of disease resistance to cisplatin can be overcome with dose escalation of platinum compounds. Patients with multiple recurrences of relapsed or refractory primary mediastinal germ cell tumors were not helped by this approach.