Testicular Cancer is one form of cancer that many men fear, just not because it kills, but because of the fact that sometimes a testicle needs to be removed from the patient's body. Testicular Cancer is a cancer of testicles in which cancerous lumps/tumors are developed around the testicles. It generally targets young people of age between 15 to 35 years, but it is evident that men of older age may also develop testicular cancer.

Testicles are sex glands which handle the most important job of producing and storing sperms in men. Testicles are located in male body in a pouch of skin which is called scrotum located below the penis. Testicles not only produce sperms, they also provide other male hormones to our body, which are the building blocks of male reproductive system, some of these hormones give male characteristics like facial hairs, our libido etc.

Various type of tumors in testicles lead to cancerous situation. Generally tumors are found in germ cells, sperm-forming cells within the testicles (the type of tumors that form in sperm forming cells are called seminomas and nonseminomas), rhabdomyosarcoma tumors, mesothelioma tumors, leydig cell tumors, PNET, leiomyosarcoma and sertoli cell tumors. Most of the tumors are found by men themselves while doing self-exam.

Self-exam is very important technique to ensure that you are not being attacked by cancer. You can examine the shape, size of your testicles every month in order to find out any abnormal changes in them. As a first stem of self exam, you simply need to look at your testicles and find out if one of your testicles has grown larger in shape and size and you feel it hard/heavy (Please note: it is absolutely normal to have slight difference in shape of the two testicles). Further you should check for the size and shape of your testicles with the help of your fingers, hold your testicles between fingers and try to find out any tumor/lump on the testicles. If you feel something wrong such as enlargement of one of the testicles and considerable loss in shape and size in other testicle, lumps on testicles, sometimes you may feel light pain in testicles and lower abdomen, if you see the blood is getting mixed with urine or semen, then you need to consult your physician as soon as possible.

The causes of testicular cancer are mostly unknown as the disease is not contagious. Some possible reasons which are thought to contribute in patient’s developing testicular cancer are: if a baby is born with abnormality in testicles, the chances of him getting testicular cancer are high, if someone has a family history where his father or brother was diagnosed with testicular cancer, it is possible that the person will also develop testicular cancer, because of possible germ infection in scrotum or near testicles, which may cause mutation in cells making them grow uncontrollably etc.

Testicular cancer can spread in other parts of body if not taken care of/treated in early stage. If the testicular cancer is diagnosed in its early stage, it is very easy to cure it. Some types of tumor are hard to treat and there is lot more of danger in carrying out treatment of those tumors, so you need to consult your doctor properly. As Testicular cancer has different characteristics in different patients, the course of treatment (which is a combination of two or more than two type of treatments) for the testicular cancer needs to be decided as no single treatment can effectively cure testicular cancer entirely. The treatments available for the testicular cancer are surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy etc.

If the testicular cancer has grown more complex, your doctor may suggest you removing the affected testicle by surgery. As testicles produce sperms, people tend to think that removing a testicle will destroy their sexual life and they won't be able to enjoy it ever again. But this is not 100% true, it does not affect the potency, sexual life of the man who have to give away one of his testicle. On the other side, your doctor may also rely on chemotherapy, as there are many effective drugs available in market, which help in treating testicular cancer successfully. Radiation therapy can also help in treatment of the cancer. Your doctor also may select combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy, high energy radiation is used to destroy the affected/cancer cells from the affected part and then use of chemotherapy to cure the remaining part of the cancer.

As we know, there is no known cause of testicular cancer, it is always better to do self examination every month so that the cancer can be found in its early stage and can be easily cured.