New Test Could Reveal Risk of Testicular Cancer Relapse

A team including researchers has created a test it says can identify patients at risk of testicular cancer relapse.

The investigators analyzed 177 tumor samples from patients with stage 1 non-seminomatous tumors, who were enrolled in clinical trials through the Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinical Trials Unit. The authors found 3 different tumor features were key indicators of relapse risk: the levels of a molecule known as CXCL12, the percentage of the tumor with an appearance of cancer stem cells, and the presence (or lack thereof) of blood vessels in the tumor.
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The researchers scored the tumors based on the aforementioned features, determining that combining scores enabled them to divide patients into 3 different risk groups based on their likelihood of relapsing within 2 years.

Overall, most patients were classified as low-risk, as 94.3% did not relapse within 2 years. Among those in the moderate-risk group, 65.9% did not relapse in that time frame, and just 30% of those in the high-risk group relapsed within the 2-year time period. The tests were validated in an additional group of 80 patients from the Royal Marsden Hospital, according to the investigators, who note that they would like to test this prognostic index in larger groups of male patients.  

“CXCL 12 and percentage embryonal carcinoma both stratify patients’ relapse risk over and above vascular invasion alone,” the authors wrote. “This is anticipated to improve the stratification of patients and identify high-risk cases to be considered for adjuvant therapy.”

 —Mark McGraw

Reference

Gilbert D, Al-Saadi R, et al. Defining a New Prognostic index for Stage I Non-seminomatous Germ Cell Tumors using CXCL12 Expression and Proportion of Embryonal Carcinoma. Clinical Cancer Research. 2015.