Booklet: What You Need to Know about Testicular Cancer

Diagnosing Testicular Cancer


When a man's symptoms suggest that there might be cancer in a testicle, the doctor will ask about his personal and family history and do a complete physical exam. In addition to checking for general signs of health (temperature, pulse, blood pressure, and so on), the doctor will carefully examine the scrotum. Also, the patient will usually have a chest x-ray and blood and urine tests. If the physical exam and lab tests do not show an infection or another disorder, the doctor is likely to suspect cancer because most tumors in the testicles are cancer.

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 the tissue, the affected testicle is removed through the groin. This operation is called inguinal orchiectomy. 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 local spread of the disease.

The most common types of testicular cancer are seminoma and nonseminoma.

• Seminomas make up about 40 percent of all cases.
• Nonseminomas are actually a group of cancers. They include choriocarcinoma, embryonal carcinoma, teratoma, and yolk sac tumors.

Each of these two major types of testicular cancer grows and spreads differently--and they are treated differently.

Back to Content Page                                         Next>>