The Seminoma Decoy: Measurement of Serum Human Chorionic Gonadotropin in Patients with Seminoma

Abstract

Serum human chorionic gonadotropin levels were determined in 20 patients with histologically proved seminoma. The test was positive in 2 of the 20 patients and was predictive of non-seminomatous metastasis in each case. Serum human chorionic gonadotropin is a useful tumor marker in detecting and following non-seminomatous metastases in men with pure seminoma of the testis.

Specificity and Sensitivity of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin Radioimmunoassays

“…These exist in pure choriocarcinomatous tumors with choriocarcinomatous components and in seminomas [7], Marker sensitivity is assumed to in crease with stage [9], In 4 of 12 cases of patients with seminoma there was an increase of P-HCG, and 1 patient had an elevated HCG-p. Other authors have described pathological HCG values in 6-24% of seminomas [1,3,5,6]. In 58 patients with nonseminomatous tumors, we found the highest sensitivity for HCG-p. Sera from 27 patients out of 56 had increased levels whereas P-HCG measurements re sulted in 20 elevated cases out of 56.…”

Role of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin in Patients with Pure Seminoma

“…Our major interest was whether an improved specificity due to two monoclonal anti bodies correlated with improved sensitivity, and if the test was suitable for monitoring seminoma treatment [14][15][16]. Furthermore, the possible prognostic value of ele vated ß-hCG levels in pure seminoma was of special inter-…”

“…Pure seminoma re quires radiotherapy in stages I, Ha, and lib; whereas stages lie (bulky disease), III, and IV, as well as nonseminomatous tumors are primarily treated by chemotherapy [9,23,24], ß-hCG and AFP are helpful markers for distin guishing between seminomatous and nonseminomatous tumors. ß-hCG, a glycoprotein, may be synthesized in both syncytiotrophoblastic giant cells and undifferen tiated teratomas, whereas AFP is produced by nonsemi nomatous tumors only [14,[25][26][27][28][29]36], Low ß-hCG serum levels are seen in both seminoma tous and nonseminomatous testicular cancer (< 200 IU/1). These findings influence therapy [21] considerably.…”

Quantification of Alpha-Fetoprotein and Beta-HCG in Testis Tumor Patients

“…Cochran [12] reported similar results, whereas Javadpour et al [13] and Bartsch and Scheiber [14] found multinuclear giant cells in seminoma for immunoreactive HCG.…”