Even so, being told you have testicular cancer will be a shock. You may be worried because you've heard that you will need an operation to remove the affected testicle. And you'll probably have questions about whether treatment for testicular cancer will affect your sex life or your ability to have children.

Your testicles are part of your reproductive system. Your reproductive system includes all the parts of your body that are involved in having sex and fathering children.

Your testicles are underneath your penis, in a bag called your scrotum. Your testicles are egg-shaped. They feel firm and smooth through the skin of your scrotum. In most men, one testicle hangs slightly lower than the other.

Your testicles have two jobs.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Martini FH.
Chapter 28: the reproductive system.
In: Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology. 5th edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

¹

Testosterone causes men to have male characteristics, such as a deep voice and hair on their face. It also plays a big part in giving men their sex drive.

Inside each of your testicles are lots of tightly-coiled tubes. Their job is to make sperm. Behind each of your testicles is a long, tightly coiled tube called the epididymis. This tube stores and protects new sperm. Sperm spend about two weeks here while they mature.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Martini FH.
Chapter 28: the reproductive system.
In: Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology. 5th edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

¹ The far end of the epididymis connects to another tube called the vas deferens. When you

 

 

 

 

 

ejaculation
When a man ejaculates, his penis suddenly releases semen, the white or transparent fluid that carries sperm.

 

 

 

 

 

ejaculate, this tube carries sperm from your testicles to your penis.

The skin and other tissues in your scrotum contain blood vessels. These carry nutrients and oxygen to your testicles. The tissues in your scrotum also contain lymph vessels. To read more about these, see What is my lymphatic system?

Testicular cancer causes the cells in your testicle to grow too quickly and form a lump called a tumor. Cancer cells are different from normal, healthy cells. The cells in your body usually grow in an orderly way. They grow and divide to form new cells as your body needs them. When old cells die, new cells take their place.

Sometimes this process breaks down. If cells become cancerous, they begin to grow out of control. They grow and divide quickly and chaotically. Extra cells grow when your body doesn't need them. And these cells don't stop growing or die when they should. The extra cells grow on top of each other to form the tumor.

Cancer cells can break off from the first tumor and travel around your body. They move around in your bloodstream or your lymph vessels. (To read more about lymph vessels, see What is my lymphatic system?) Cancer cells from your testicle can start growing in another part of your body, such as your lungs.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Dearnaley DP, Huddart RA, Horwich A.
Managing testicular cancer.
BMJ. 2001; 322: 1583-1588.

 

 

 

 

 

³ When cancer moves from one part of your body to another, doctors call it metastasis.

However, it's rare for cancer to spread from one of your testicles to the other. Within your scrotum, each testicle is enclosed inside muscle and other tissue.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Martini FH.
Chapter 28: the reproductive system.
In: Fundamentals of Anatomy and Physiology. 5th edition. Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

¹ This usually stops cancer cells from getting through. It is possible to get cancer in both testicles, but it is rare.

Cancer cells are put into groups depending on how they look under a microscope. There are two main types of testicular cancer. They are:

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Bosl GJ, Sheinfeld J, Bajorin DF, et al.
Chaper 35: cancer of the testis.
In: DeVita VT, Hellman S, Rosenberg SA (editors). Cancer: principles and practice of oncology. 6th edition. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, Philadelphia, U.S.A.; 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

⁴

Some tumors are mixed. They contain some seminoma cells and some non-seminoma cells.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Dearnaley DP, Huddart RA, Horwich A.
Managing testicular cancer.
BMJ. 2001; 322: 1583-1588.

 

 

 

 

 

³

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Bosl GJ, Sheinfeld J, Bajorin DF, et al.
Chaper 35: cancer of the testis.
In: DeVita VT, Hellman S, Rosenberg SA (editors). Cancer: principles and practice of oncology. 6th edition. Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, Philadelphia, U.S.A.; 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

⁴ The kind of cancer cells that make up the tumor will affect the treatment you need.

All men with testicular cancer need surgery to remove the tumor. For more information, see Surgery to remove the affected testicle. If it's likely that cancer cells have spread outside your testicle, you may be given a treatment that affects your whole body. This is called systemic treatment.

Chemotherapy with anti-cancer drugs is one treatment that affects your whole body. And you may be given radiation therapy to your abdomen to kill any cancer cells that have spread there.

Seminomas are very sensitive to radiation.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Shelley MD, Burgon K, Mason MD.
Treatment of testicular germ-cell cancer: a Cochrane evidence-based systematic review.
Cancer Treatment Review. 2002; 28: 237-253.

 

 

 

 

 

⁵ They're often treated with surgery and radiation therapy. Non-seminomas are often treated with surgery and chemotherapy.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Horwich A.
Testicular germ cell tumors: an introductory overview.
In: Testicular cancer: investigation and management. 2nd edition. Chapman and Hall, London, UK; 1996.

 

 

 

 

 

⁶

When doctors talk about the stage of your cancer, they're talking about how far the cancer has spread outside your testicle and into other parts of your body. One common way of doing this is to use numbers. Stage 1 means that cancer cells haven't spread outside your testicle. Stage 2, 3 or 4 mean that cancer cells have spread further.

Doctors also use something called the TNM system to describe the stage of testicular cancer. Again, numbers are used to describe how much the cancer has spread.

For more information, see Staging testicular cancer.

It might be worrying to hear your doctor talking about cancer cells spreading in your body. But testicular cancer is much easier to treat than most other types of cancer. Even men whose cancer is at a late stage stand a good chance of being cured.

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Dearnaley DP, Huddart RA, Horwich A.
Managing testicular cancer.
BMJ. 2001; 322: 1583-1588.

 

 

 

 

 

³

It's often impossible to say that a particular thing caused your cancer. Instead, doctors talk about risk factors. These are things that make it more likely that you'll get the disease. The main risk factors for testicular cancer are:

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Dearnaley DP, Huddart RA, Horwich A.
Managing testicular cancer.
BMJ. 2001; 322: 1583-1588.

 

 

 

 

 

³

 

 

 

 

 

Source:
Tamimi R, Adami H-O.
Testicular cancer.
In: Adami H-O, Hunter D, Trichopoulos D (editors). Textbook of cancer epidemiology. Oxford Universty Press, Oxford, UK; 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

⁷

For more information, see Risk factors for testicular cancer.

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