Health Status and Burden of Late Effects in Very Long-term Testicular Cancer Survivors (STANDBY-study)

Plain-language summary

Depending on disease stage, testicular cancer (TC) treatment consists of an orchidectomy, alone or followed by radiotherapy (RT) or platinum-based chemotherapy (CT). TC survival rates are above 90% nowadays, which results in growing TC survivor population. Because of the long life expectancy of these survivors, prevention or early detection of late treatment effects has become increasingly relevant. Yet known late effects are nephrotoxicity, cardiovascular disease (CVD), secondary malignant neoplasms (SMN), neurotoxicity, pulmonary toxicity, Raynaud's phenomenon, hypogonadism, fatigue and psychosocial problems. Nephrotoxicity is an important late effect, but data is lacking in very long-term survivors since performed studies have a follow-up duration of 5-14 years. Decreased renal function is a known risk factor for CVD development and also an association between renal function and neurtoxicity via circulating platinum levels has been shown. It is hypothesized that treatment induced nephrotoxicity is prevalent in TC survivors and might be a mediator for development of late effects. The secondary aim is to assess prevalence of late effects in very long-term TC survivors: until now, most data have been collected through questionnaires in large epidemiological studies in TC survivors till approximately 10 years after treatment. The prevalence of late effects may increase over time: 10 years after treatment late effects may not be present yet, whilst late effects can emerge just after 20 years. Consequently, health status and possible late effects, resulting in morbidity, are underestimated in patients who are 20-30 years after treatment. By investigating health status of these very long-term survivors a more profound insight in the prevalence and aetiology of these late effects and the development over time can be assessed. Current treatment is very similar to TC treatment 20-30 years ago and therefore knowledge on late effects is relevant for currently treated patients. Furthermore, as a result of this study, we will better understand which factors and issues should be watched closely during follow-up, which TC survivors are at increased risk of developing late treatment effects and how to detect early damage before overt morbidity occurs.

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