The CancerWeb Report, What's New In Cancer: October, 1996
Testicular Cancer

• Outpatient chemotherapy combination for advanced seminoma - Seminomas are tumors that in early stages typically respond well to radiotherapy, and when they recur are usually treatable by chemotherapy using cisplatin and etoposide with or without bleomycin. However, cisplatin is a drug that is best administered in hospital because of its severe side-effects. An alternative platinum drug, carboplatin, is less toxic and offers the advantage of being given on an outpatient basis. A study at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, published in the September, 1996 issue of the British Journal of Cancer, reported that a combination of carboplatin, vincristine, and cyclophosphamide, given in cycles at 3-week intervals, was an effective treatment for advanced seminoma, with only one in 27 patients failing over a 26-month follow-up. The side-effects were mainly hematological with reduced counts of white cell in 100% and of platelets in 80% of patients, but even with this degree of severe toxicity outpatient treatment was feasible. (Sleijfer, Br J Cancer 74:947, 1996)