There are a few different type of male genitourinary cancers. The most common solid malignancy in men aged between 20 and 40 are testicular cancers which are considered as rare.
Rare cancer of the male genital organs and of the urinary tract
Recommendations
The treatment of male genitourinary cancers is very well codified:
Initial management consists of orchidectomy and evaluation for metastases by measurement of serum tumour markers and imaging of the abdomen and thorax. Without signs of metastases at the moment of orchidectomy, a watchful wait-and-see policy is initiated in patients with high risk of metastases in one prophylactic course of chemotherapy. If metastases are present, or when they arise during follow-up, systemic treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy is indicated.
After completion of chemotherapy restaging is performed, in case of residual disease this is removed by surgical resection. Overall metastatic testicular cancer has become a highly curable malignancy with a 10-year survival rate of around 80%.
As a result of this favourable prognosis and together with a still increasing incidence, the population of successfully treated testicular cancer survivors is steadily growing. Because of a presumed normal life-expectancy when cured from testicular cancer, the risk for treatment-related complications in thesepatients is increasingly recognized. Examples of these side-effects are infertility, neurotoxicity, second malignancies and cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Most chemotherapy-treated patients will remain under oncological follow-up for 5 to10 years after treatment.
Treatment within a network of reference centres ensures the accurate application of clinical practice guidelines for curative first line treatment.
Testis cancer is one of the malignancies where imperfect adherence to clinical practice guidelines leads to increased risk of relapse. Participation in clinical and translational research programs at relapse, and also in studies on late treatment effects is encouraged.