Testicular Cancer
When a man's symptoms suggest that there might be cancer, a personal and family medical history are taken and a complete physical exam is conducted. In addition to checking general signs of health, the scrotum will be carefully examined. The patient will usually have a sonogram, a chest x-ray, and blood and urine tests. The only sure way to know whether cancer is present is for a pathologist to examine a sample of tissue under a microscope. To obtain tissue, the affected testicle is removed through the groin. This operation is called Inguinalorchiectomy. The surgeon does not cut through the scrotum and does not remove just a part of the testicle because, if the problem is cancer, cutting through the outer layer of the testicle might cause the disease to spread.
Staging
If a man has testicular cancer, it is important to find the extent, or stage of the disease. There are three stages of testicular cancer:
* Stage 1-- cancer is confined to the testicle.
* Stage 2--disease has spread to retroperitoneal lymph nodes, located in the rear of the body below the diaphragm, a muscular wall seperating the chest cavity from the abdomen.
*Stage 3--cancer has spread beyond the lymph node to remote sites in the body, to include the lungs, and the brain.
The survival rate for men with early Stage seminomas is approximately 97%. The disease-free survival rate for Stage 1 nonseminomatous cancer is nearly 99%; for Stage2; 87%; and for Stage 3; 57%.
Methods Of Treating Testicular Cancer
Testicular cancer can be treated with surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy. One method or a combination of methods may be used. Often, the patient is referred to medical centers that specialize in testicular cancer treatment. Many men worry that losing one testicle will affect their ability to have sexual ntercourse or make him sterile. But a man with one healthy testicle can still have a normal erection and produce sperm. An operation to remove one testicle does not make a patient impotent and seldom interferes with fertility.
How To Examine The Testicles
Medical professionals say men can greatly increase their chance of finding testicular tumors by testiculat self-exanination, or TSE. Locating a tumor this way can boost the odds of early intervention and total cure.
TSE is best performed after a warm bath or shower. Heat relaxes the scrotum, making it easier to spot anything abnormal The National Cancer Institute recommends following these steps every month:
* Stand infront of a mirror.
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