Optimizing surveillance strategies for sacrococcygeal teratoma: A Midwest pediatric surgery consortium multi-institutional study

You've just finished a sacrococcygeal teratoma resection on your patient. What is your plan for post-op surveillance? I'm Jill Kneroth with Stay Current MD, and this is an article you should know about. In 2025, the Midwest P Paediatric Surgery Consortium published a retrospective multi-institutional study in the International. Journal of Cancer. They assessed how multiple institutions approach surveillance in these patients and possible impacts on recurrence. So what did these authors find? Overall, recurrence-free survival was at 94% at 1 year. This decreased to around 89% at 3 and 5 years. Showing that the majority of recurrences happened 3 years post resection. They also found that malignant histopathology was the only significant factor associated with recurrence. As far as surveillance strategies, these varied widely across institutions with no standardized protocol in place. They recommend a 3-year minimum of surveillance. This includes tumor markers, imaging, as well as a physical exam. Do these recommendations change your plans for surveillance?