Roughly 20% of patients with advanced GCT relapse or fail to achieve a complete response to conventional cisplatin based chemotherapy. Patients (pts) with relapsed or refractory GCT may be cured by salvage chemotherapy with gemcitabine and paclitaxel. 38 consecutive pts were treated with gemcitabine and pac¬litaxel at Thomayer Teaching Hospital in Prague from 1999 to June 2007. Highly pre-treated patients were treated with paclitaxel 175 mg/m2 Dl and gemcitabine 1 000 mg/m2 Dl+5, int. 3-4w. Toxicity was quite low, haematological toxicity was manageable with growth factors and replacement of platelets. 12 pts atta-ined CR, 6 pts PR, 11 patients had stable disease, progressive disease was observed in 9 pts. Medián OS (overall survival) was 26 months. Medián TTP (time to progression) was 16 months. Conclusion: Salvage chemotherapy with paclitaxel and gemcitabine is an effective treatment with acceptable toxicity in highly pre-treated patients with recurrent germ-cell tumours.

        Key words: salvage chemotherapy, germ cell tumours, gemcitabine, paclitaxel.