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Germ cell tumors (GCT) are the most common malignancy in men in the third and fourth decades of life. The occurrence of malignant GCT in men aged 50 years or over is rare, and their histopathologic characteristics and outcome is insufficiently characterized in the medical literature. Hence, we report the histopathologic features and clinical outcome of malignant GCTs in men aged ≥50 years at our institution.We performed a retrospective search of our database from 2005 to 2021 to identify men aged 50 years or older with malignant GCT. Cases of spermatocytic tumor were excluded. Clinical and histopathologic features of the tumors were reviewed.Forty-seven cases were identified, showing a sharp decline in incidence over the age of 65. Thirty-nine (83 %) tumors were testicular while eight (17 %) were non-testicular in presentation. Cases included 26 (55 %) seminomas, 15 (32 %) non-seminoma/mixed malignant GCT, and 5 (11 %) regressed testicular germ cell tumors. The most common component in mixed malignant GCTs was embryonal carcinoma (77 %), followed by seminoma and yolk sac tumor (62 % each). Germ cell neoplasia in situ (GCNIS) accompanied 57 % of the cases. Aggressive pathologic features, including lymphovascular invasion, retroperitoneal/lymph node involvement and higher stage at presentation, were identified in a significant proportion of cases (36/47, 77 %). Clinical follow up showed six patients (14 %) died of disease-related causes.Our findings expand and corroborate the previously reported data on malignant GCT in older men. Unique characteristics include tendency for higher stage at presentation with adverse pathologic features and more aggressive clinical course.

African-American (AA) men have a higher risk of lethal prostate cancer (PCa) compared to European-American (EA) men. However, the molecular basis of this difference, if any, remains unclear. In EA PCa, PTEN loss, but not ERG rearrangement, has been associated with poor outcomes in most studies. Although ERG rearrangement is less common in AA compared to EA PCa, the relative frequency of PTEN loss and the association of PTEN/ERG molecular subtypes with outcomes is unknown for AA PCa. We examined PTEN/ERG status by immunohistochemistry in self-identified AA patients undergoing radical prostatectomy at Johns Hopkins with tumor tissue available on tissue microarray (TMA; n=169) and matched these cases by pathologic parameters to 169 EA patients from the same TMAs. The rate of PTEN loss was significantly lower in AA compared to EA PCa (18% vs 34%; p=0.001), similar to the lower rate of ERG expression (25% vs 51%; p0.001). To examine the association of PTEN/ERG status with oncologic outcomes, we created an additional TMA of 87 AA tumors with Gleason score4 + 3 = 7. Among the total population of AA men with outcome data from all TMAs (n=222), PTEN loss was associated with higher risk of biochemical recurrence (hazard ratio [HR] 2.25, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.33-3.82) and metastasis (HR 3.90, 95% CI 1.46-10.4) in multivariable models.PTEN and ERG alterations in prostate cancer are less likely in African-American than in European-American men. However, PTEN loss remains associated with poor prostate cancer outcomes among African-American men.