Chemotherapy in patients with penile carcinoma.

The prognosis of patients with advanced penile carcinoma is poor. There are only few studies, mostly with a low number of patients, which show a low response rate with severe toxicity. While adjuvant and palliative chemotherapy for penile cancer is universally characterized by low efficacy, neoadjuvant approaches for patients with fixed lymph node metastases have shown some response. Overall, recent experiences with new chemotherapeutic approaches (i.e. taxane-based combinations) have shown some encouraging results. Therefore, these combinations should be investigated in larger and multi-center studies. (c) 2009 S. Karger AG, Basel.