Disseminated choriocarcinoma in infancy is curable by chemotherapy and delayed tumour resection

Infantile choriocarcinoma has a poor prognosis with only 2 surviving childr en reported in the literature. 2 additional successfully treated children o re presented. 2 infants (age 3 and 4 months at diagnosis) suffering from ra pidly progressive choriocarcinoma with widespread haematogenous metastases involving the liver were treated according to the: cooperative germ cell tu mour treatment protocol (MAKEI 96) of the German Society of Pediatric Oncol ogy and Hematology (GPOH). PEI-chemotherapy (cisplatin, etoposide, ifosfami de, no ifosfamide before the age of 4 months) was combined with delayed tum our resection. Treatment resulted in sustained remission in both children ( event-free survival 42 and 40 months). Interphase fluorescent in situ hybri disation (FISH) analysis of the paraffin-embedded tumour sample from case o ne revealed four to eight copies of chromosomes X, 1 and 17 and two Y chrom osomes. Hybridisation with sub-telomere and centromere specific probes for chromosome 1 displayed an imbalance between the short and long arms of chro mosome 1. In the tumour cells from case 2, only a polysomy of chromosome X could be proven, other aberrations were not analysed in this case for techn ical reasons. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.