Treatment of Mediastinal Germ Cell Neoplasms by Radiation Therapy

Radiotherapy was once the mainstay of therapy for mediastinal seminomas, but the advent of cisplatin-based chemotherapy has largely supplanted its role. This section will focus on the role of radiotherapy in the management of mediastinal seminomas. Non-seminomatous germ cell tumors were included in many of the initial case series cited below — they are generally not responsive to radiotherapy, and there is currently no role for radiotherapy in the treatment of non-seminomatous germ cell lesions of the mediastinum.