Intracranial germinomas: treatment and results.

Eighty-nine patients with intracranial germinomas were treated from 1954 through 1975. Radiotherapy was given in 62 patients. The five-year survival rate was 61% and the ten-year survival rate was 55%. In unbiopsied patients the five-year survival rate was 66% and the ten-year survival rate was 59%, whereas in biopsied ones it was 56% and 47%, respectively. Prophylactic irradiation to the spinal axis in the presence of germinoma cells in the cerebrospinal fluid may not be justified.