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Despite a long track record of excellent outcomes for most patients with germ-cell tumors (GCTs), 3% to 5% of patients experience late-disease recurrence (>2 years after complete response to primary therapy and without secondary GCT). Moreover, those who manifest late relapses typically respond poorly to chemotherapy and have less than a 50% chance of long-term survival.
To better characterize this late-relapse population, investigators performed a retrospective review of 75 patients with late-relapse GCTs treated between 1990 and 2004 (median time to late relapse, 6.9 years; range, 2.1–37.7 years). Of these patients, 93% had nonseminomatous GCTs; 53% had relapse at a single site; and 72% had relapse in the retroperitoneum, including 25 of t…