survival of children with germ cell tumors in ali asghar hospital since 1990 to 2003

background and objective: germ cell tumor (gct) accounts for approximately 2-3% of all malignancies in children. in this respect, about 20% of patients with gct are still resistant to therapy. materials and methods: the cross-sectional strategy of this survey was undertaken on 57 patients with germ cell tumor who admitted to ali asghar children hospital during the years 1990- 2003. in this study, information regarding sex, age, pathological findings, clinical signs, treatment, and survival (event-free survival) were gathered in order to have better treatment and follow-up. the obtained data were analyzed using spss software. results: the findings showed that the mean age of patients was 4.9 ± 0.1 years (1 months-14 years). meanwhile, 54% and 46% of patients were male and female respectively with a ratio of 1.1. regarding site of involvement, 57.8% and 42% of patients had sacrococcygeal and gonadal tumors respectively. in addition, regarding their pathological typing, 61.4%, 12.2%, 14%, and 10.5% of them had yolk sac tumor, dysgerminoma, malignant teratoma, and embryonal carcinoma respectively. the most common clinical signs were buttock mass, testicular mass, an abdominal mass, and abdominal pain in 31.5%, 28%, 17.5%, and 10.5% of patients respectively. all of the patients were treated with chemotherapy (bleomycin, vinblastin, cisplat). mean duration of followup was 48.4 months. in this regard, 31.5% of the patients were alive, no information was available for 15.7% of them, and 52.6% of cases were expired. meanwhile, 70% of the patients had tumor relapse. in this regard, event-free survival (efs) for patients was 42%. conclusion: the analysis of the treated patients showed that extragonadal location of primary tumor (especially sacrococcygeal), level of afp above 10 ng/ml in patients, an age equal to or greater than 6 months, and metastatic disease were the most unfavorable factors for overall survival .