TESTICULAR MYELOID SARCOMA: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF LITERATURE ABSTRACTObjective:To review literature for the clinical characteristics, treatment and prognosis of reported cases of testicular myeloid sarcoma (TMS).Methods:The clinical data of TMS patients were reviewed, including their clinical features and treatment, and were evaluated.Results:A total of 52 cases of TMS were studied. The median age was 42 years old (50 patients data) with age range of 0.17 to 79 years. Mostly, unilateral with left side being more common. Treatment methods given included combinations of surgery, chemotherapy and hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. 14 cases were misdiagnosed initially due to histopathological or clinical similarities. Most of the patients were treated with AML like chemotherapy. Rarely, patients were treated only with orchiectomy. Only three cases underwent HSCT for TMS. Majority of the patients died irrespective of treatment protocol followed suggesting the poor prognosis in TMS cases.Conclusion:The incidence of TMS is low, hence the current data is still immature regarding the guidelines. The existing data is based on the experience with the MS involving the more common sites. As per the current literature, combined chemotherapy regimen of anthracycline and cytarabine combined with HSCT can achieve better clinical efficacy.Key words:Myeloid sarcoma; acute myeloid leukaemia; chemotherapy; testis; chloromaINTRODUCTIONGranulocytic sarcoma (GS), commonly known as myeloid sarcoma (MS) or chloroma is an extramedullary neoplasm comprised of leukemic granulocytes organized as solid deposits, found either in isolation or in association with leukemias, most commonly in association with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Rarely, MS is also seen in conjunction with myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPN), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) and the blast phase of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). MS has been recently been included as a major subgroup in the WHO classification of myeloid neoplasms (2). The American Cancer Society in 2018 reported 9310 newly diagnosed cases of testicular cancer in the United States alone, with a mortality of 5% in total. The majority of testicular malignancies (approximately 85%) occur in the reproductive age group and hence it affects the most functional group of general population (3). Myeloid sarcoma accounts for 2-8% of all cases of AML and 4.5% of all CML cases. Clinically depending on the time of occurrence, MS is categorized into three different groups (Table 1) as follows- [1] Concurrent, when primary hematological disease and MS is diagnosed at the same time [2] Isolated, when MS is the sole finding without any evidence of leukemia/MPN etc. [3] Secondary, when MS develops in a known case of leukemia/MPN signifying either relapse or blast crisis.While almost any site may be involved in MS, commonly afflicted sites include lymph nodes, skin, orbit and the head and neck region (48). However, testes are an uncommon site of involvement in this condition. Large institutional case series of 27 (Suh et al), 61 (Neiman et al) and 92 cases (Pileri et al) have reported incidence of Testicular Myeloid Sarcoma (TMS) of only 4%, 5% and 6.5% respectively (911). This paper aims to sensitize readers to keep low threshold for TMS and also discusses the challenges in diagnosis and management.METHODOLOGY Search strategy: This systematic review investigated all articles as per the PRISMA guideline for systematic review. All case reports, case series, studies that has been published until December 2018 were investigated. By using the MeSH terms testis and myeloid sarcoma, testis and Chloroma, testis and granulocytic sarcoma, we searched the Medline/PubMed, and we also searched google scholar with the above-mentioned terms. We searched the references of all the articles that has been published regarding this.Selection and inclusion criteria: The relevant literature search was done by two independent and trained researchers. Abstracts of all available articles were examined in order to ensure includability. Articles that were original, included humans, in English, had an abstract, and had a complete report were included in the review. Articles that were incomplete, published in other language, did not have an abstract or convincing clinical detail were excluded. A total of 62 articles were identified over the span of past 40 years [1988 to 2018]. Among these 5 articles were excluded as they were not in English language, 4 articles were excluded as they were incomplete. Hence a total of 53 articles were included in this analysis (Flow diagram 1).Data extraction: One reviewer independently extracted the data and entered these in a predefined data sheet. Details of demographic, clinical, histopathological, management, follow up and outcome related data were extracted from each of the article. Details of treatment with chemoradiotherapy and/or Stem cell transplant were also obtained.Data analysis: Extracted data was entered in Microsoft excel version 16. 17 spread sheets. In statistical analysis means and percentages were reported for continuous and categorical variables respectively. RESULTS Patient characteristicsA total of 53 cases reviewed from literature were included in our study cohort. Patient characteristics including age, side of involvement, presenting features with treatment and outcome were manually abstracted for analysis and are shown in Table 1. Out of 53 cases, an interesting case of TMS was reported in a hermaphrodite (case no. 39) (12). Our study cohort had the median age of 42 years (51 patients data) with age range of 0.17 to 79 years. Mostly, testicular involvement was unilateral with left sided involvement being commoner than the right. Most common pattern of testicular involvement was left only (18 cases) followed by right only (14 cases) followed by bilateral (5 cases). In 5 cases, TMS was unilateral to begin with followed bilateral involvement. No data of side of involvement was available in 10 cases. Our review showed that the most common presenting complaint or symptom described were scrotal swelling, scrotal mass, overlying skin discoloration and testicular pain (case no 12, 25 and 52). In two cases, a testicular mass was detected incidentally during an evaluation for left arm paresis (case 15) and ileal mass (case no 24) respectively.Diagnostic challenges 4 out of the 47 cases with available records in our study, were initially misdiagnosed as epididymitis, orchitis and spermatocele. 10 of the 47 cases were diagnosed as lymphoma (10, all non-Hodgkins lymphoma) and plasmacytoma (1). 7 cases of the misdiagnosed NHL even received chemotherapy (case no 13, 14, 19, 23, 24, 44 and 47). Patients who were misdiagnosed, received treatment on a variety of chemotherapeutic regimens like RCHOP, CHOP, VEMP and CVP. With introduction of flowcytometry and advancement in staining techniques, the incidence of misinterpretation during microscopic examination have gone down significantly.Other sites of involvement by leukemic infiltrates We noted that in few of the reviewed patients, MS also involved parts other than testes. In 14 patients, we found one or sites of MS involvement including the skin (case nos 15,16,17,18,24,27,28), ileum (case no 22,24), orbit (case no 33), lymph nodes (case nos 14,27,29,32), peritoneum (case no 15) retina (case no 33), psoas (case no 27), forearm (case nos 18, 44), nasolabial fold (case no 47) and stomach (case no 15). Three patients (case nos 4,7 and 29) had retroperitoneal lymphadenopathy related hydroureteronephrosis. The impending organ dysfunction can be prevented with timely intervention.Stratification of TMS casesBy analyzing the clinical data, we were able to divide the cases into three clinical settings as mentioned above in introduction section. We found 6 concurrent (C) TMS cases, 23 isolated (I) TMS cases and 17 secondary (S) TMS cases. In four patients (case no-17,18,48,49), no data was available to categories the patient into one of these three groups. In patients with S TMS and C TMS, the underlying diseases were AML (11 cases), CML (4 cases), CMML (3 cases), APML (3), MDS (2). Time duration of diagnosis of primary malignancy to the development of TMS is mentioned in Table 1 wherever the data was available.Treatment strategies Various treatment modalities using different therapeutic regimens including various combinations of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, HSCT and experimental therapy. Table 2 outlines the various regimens implemented for the treatment of TMS by various authors. As evident as well, there is a lack of protocol driven therapeutic guidelines for treatment of TMS. Table 2 also mentions patient treatment follow-up details. We were unable to gather follow-up data for 10 out of the 53? cases due to lack of information. 1 patient was lost to follow-up. In 17 out of the remaining 42 cases, patients were reported to be disease-free following treatment. Analysis showed that 20 patients were deceased at follow-up. The remaining patients were living either with disease or undergoing treatment (Case nos 11, 26, 28, 29, 30, 34). 2 cases died from causes unrelated to TMS or hematological disease.Amongst the cases with available data, 9 cases of TMS were treated with orchiectomy only without chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Details of their follow-up are outlined in table X. case 27 (died due to progression of disease), case 30 (relapsed on other side after an year), case 31(NED till last f/u of 17 months), case 35 (lost to follow up), case 37 (NED till last f/u of 7 yrs.), case 46 (systemic and CNS relapse after 9 months), Case 47 (systemic relapse in 6 months), case 48 (details not available) and case 53 (NED till last f/u of 13 months).


Recent Comments