3.4. Staging
The aggressive nature of NGOC makes metastatic disease a concern, with hematologic and local spread occurring early in the disease process
[30]. Local spread appears to follow the embryological pathway of germ cell migration
[31]. In the largest chart review of 39 patients with NGOC, 80% of patients had metastatic disease to the lungs, 30% to the pelvis, 20% to the vagina, and 10% to the liver
[13,32][13][32]. Other sites with less common metastatic disease included the gastrointestinal tract, spleen, and kidney
[3,4,13,16,18][3][4][13][16][18].
4. Treatment
Due to the rarity of pure NGOC, there have not been large-scale studies evaluating the optimal surgical treatments.
4.1. Surgery
The basis for surgical resection is extrapolated from the treatment of germ cell tumors. Shao et al. reported on patients who underwent either cytoreductive surgery (resection of the uterus, bilateral ovaries, bilateral fallopian tubes, omentum, pelvic and para-aortic lymph nodes, appendix, and any other abdominal, pelvic metastases) or fertility-preserving surgery (any combination of removal of tumor and reproductive organ not resulting in sterilization)
[6]. Six patients who were initially treated with fertility-preserving surgery subsequently underwent cytoreductive surgery, most commonly due to an unsatisfactory decrease in beta-HCG or relapse. One patient who initially underwent fertility-sparing surgery subsequently underwent total hysterectomy to address profuse vaginal bleeding due to the mistaken diagnosis of primary uterine choriocarcinoma, but evaluation of the uterine and adnexal specimen showed no evidence of disease
[33].
4.2. Fertility-Sparing Surgery
Fertility-preservation surgery should be discussed with patients at the time of surgical management, given that the peak incidence of NGOC is during a woman’s early/peak reproductive years. Liu et al. recommend that patients with suspected stage I disease be offered fertility-sparing surgery
[13]. However, many patients already have advanced disease at presentation
[6,13,34][6][13][34]; as seen in larger case series, more than 50% present with stage II, II, or IV disease
[6,13][6][13]. Minimally invasive surgical approaches to ovarian cancer have previously been described
[35,36][35][36]. Xin et al. reported a patient with stage IIb NGOC treated with fertility-sparing resection via minimally invasive approach followed by adjuvant chemotherapy and achieved remission at nine months after therapy
[37]. Inaba et al. reported a patient with stage III NGOC treated with fertility-sparing subtotal tumor resection followed by high-dose chemotherapy and achieved complete remission after eighteen months
[38].
4.3. Chemotherapy
GOCs are often treated with methotrexate-based chemotherapy regimens based on the FIGO score; single agent methotrexate is often used for patients with a FIGO score of less than 7
[39]. However, single agent chemotherapy is ineffective in patients with NGOCs
[9]. NGOCs fall within the diagnostic realm of a germ cell tumors and should be addressed as such from both a treatment and prognostic standpoint. However, NGOCs are more difficult to treat
[2] and have a worse prognosis compared to GOCs
[1,13,40][1][13][40]. Treatment typically consists of both surgery and systemic chemotherapy
[6]. However, due to the rare occurrence of the disease and a lack of clinical trials, a preferred chemotherapy regimen has not been established
[13]. Both platinum-based and multi-agent methotrexate-based treatments have been utilized for treating NGOCs. Most recent case reports describe treatment with Bleomycin, Etoposide, and Cisplatin (BEP), which had shown excellent activity in other malignant germ cell tumors; however, successful responses have been observed with other regimens
[6,13,41,42][6][13][41][42].
4.4. Radiation
Radiation therapy is infrequently used for patients with NGOC. Chemoradiotherapy was recommended in one case series for patients with advanced disease followed by palliative surgical resection of any residual disease
[13]. In another case report, a patient received radiation therapy after suspected diagnosis during an exploratory laparotomy. She only received 5 fractions before complications arose and radiation therapy was stopped; treatment was then converted to platinum-based chemotherapy with BEP
[18].
4.5. Choriocarcinoma Syndrome
Patients with advanced NGOC may also develop choriocarcinoma syndrome, a rare but potentially fatal complication that should be suspected in patients with high tumor burden, significant metastatic disease, and elevated tumor markers
[34]. This syndrome has been described as occurring after initiation of chemotherapy, or spontaneously in advanced disease, and is thought to be related to tumor invasion of small blood vessels and subsequent hemorrhage
[34,43][34][43]. Clinical manifestations most commonly include pulmonary hemorrhage and acute respiratory distress syndrome, as well as gastrointestinal hemorrhage, intra-hepatic and/or intra-abdominal hemorrhage, hemo- or pneumothorax, and cerebral hemorrhage
[7,34,44][7][34][44]. Choriocarcinoma syndrome has a very poor clinical prognosis; initiating milder chemotherapy regimens and ensuring multimodal supportive therapy, timely and sequential intensive chemotherapy has been proposed to prevent and manage choriocarcinoma syndrome
[34]. Modified regimens of BEP have been proposed to prevent this fatal syndrome and have shown favorable results
[7,45][7][45].
5. Conclusions
NGOC is a distinct and rare disease from the more common GOC and poses diagnostic challenges as its presentation can mimic gestational trophoblastic disease or more common conditions in reproductive-aged women (i.e., ectopic pregnancy) and cannot be differentiated from GOC on histopathology. Therefore, special attention needs to be paid to ensuring the prompt and proper diagnosis by acknowledging a patient’s history that excludes or minimizes the possibility of pregnancy and utilizing tissue genotyping (when appropriate). Patients presenting with a large, unilateral solid tumor should raise the suspicion of a germ cell tumor and negative point-of-care pregnancy tests should be confirmed with a serum beta HCG level. With proper diagnosis, chemotherapy, and surgical resection, patients can experience positive outcomes both from a survival benefit as well as fertility preservation.