[High-dose chemotherapy with autologous bone marrow transplantation or peripheral blood stem cell transplantation--testicular cancer].

Through advances in chemotherapy with the appearance of the drug cisplatin, testicular cancer treatment has improved dramatically. Consequently, testicular cancer has become one of the group of tumors that can be completely cured. Even in advanced testicular cancer, a curative rate of approximately 70% is obtainable from first-line chemotherapy, commonly by BEP combination. The problem, however, is treatment of the remaining 30% of the patients who fail to respond to first-line chemotherapy or who relapse shortly after first-line chemotherapy. Supportive therapy strengthens the chemotherapy of testicular cancer, for example, high-dose chemotherapy with carboplatin and etoposide with autologus bone marrow rescue, either by autologus bone marrow transplantation or peripheral blood stem cell transplantation, which can cure 15% to 20% of patients whose disease has progressed during prior chemotherapy combined with cisplatin. Though more cases of relapse were observed with high-dose chemotherapy compared to first-line chemotherapy, and the long-term prognosis is unknown, we should evaluate the usefulness of high-dose chemotherapy as an initial treatment for testicular cancer patients with poor prognoses.